Forces of Nature Chronicles, Book I: Wild Fire
by DarkHeroOrion
Summary: A single spark is all it takes to start a fire. Fire induces warmth, but it also leads to a destructive inferno. Naruto must rise to the occasion to grasp that which creates…and destroys. Will he harness this new power?
1. Prologue: That Single Spark

_The Forces of Nature Chronicles presents_

**_Book One: Wild Fire_**

野火

_A fan fiction by: DarkHeroOrion_

_Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any elements of the manga or anime, for that matter. Naruto belongs to the ownership property of one Kishimoto Masashi. In addition, any and all facets possibly incorporated within this fan fiction do not belong to the author of this work, and this fictitious piece is merely for free entertainment purposes only._

_Age Disclaimer: This story will contain subject matter not suitable for those under the age of thirteen or for those that find mild language and graphic violence (death and injury included) distasteful or very offensive._

As usual, here's my generic text legend. You should know the drill by now:

"This is common speech notation."

_'This is a thought process.'_

_The italics without quotation marks are used for dreams, flashback narration and text-related material._

**"This is the speech of a summoned creature, spirit or bijū."**

**_'This is the thought process of a summoned creature, spirit or bijū.'_**

**_This is the text used for technique casting, since the ninja in the manga do not shout out the names of their talents._**

**"This is the speech of a demon-host merger or the fusion of a mortal figure with an otherworldly power."**

**Premise: **A single spark is all it takes to start a fire. Fire induces warmth, but it also leads to a destructive inferno. Naruto must rise to the occasion to grasp that which creates…and destroys. Will he harness this new power?

**_Prologue_**_: That Single Spark_

Five individuals huddled rather solemnly around the crackling campfire.

One, tall figure blankly stared at the burning cinders with his visible eye, since the rest of his face was covered by either the cloth concealing the lower half of his face, or the navy-blue bandanna hanging crookedly over his left eye. His lips imperceptibly twitched behind his half-mask into a small grimace as he recalled the harrowing ordeal from earlier that day.

The Demon Brothers, labeled in the bingo books as Chūnin-rank shinobi, had assaulted his squadron; most notably, the bridge builder and client, Tazuna, who had an equally morose look displayed on his wrinkled countenance, interlaced with guilt for lying to the patrons who chose to honor that contract, despite the ramifications or the growing issues that came with it. The drunken man lowered his conical hat to avoid the seasoned veteran's sweeping gaze as he glanced around the burning flames, taking in what his charges were doing.

The Jōnin of Team Seven, Hatake Kakashi, shifted his sight to the bushel of blond hair poking out of a blue sleeping bag. A soft sigh escaped his mouth while his lone eye shut in contemplation.

What did he currently think of the resident loudspeaker of Konohagakure, Uzumaki Naruto?

Aside from acting like the foolhardy class clown, he never really expected much out of the boy, but his acquisition of the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu altered his initial judgment. That boy was surprising; on that, there was no doubt. On the other hand, his compulsive behavior led the high-ranking shinobi to make comparisons between one of his young wards and a ghost of the past. In his mind, Kakashi felt it impossible to approach him, one on one…

Well, that, and the blond genin mostly kept his issues to himself, all the while hiding behind a smile as fragile as glass.

_'Naruto seems fine on his own,'_ the older ninja tacked on as an afterthought. He would have to get to the boy at a later time, if the necessity arose.

Nevertheless, the boy acted rather irresponsibly in his first scuffle with another ninja, but that was to be expected for greenhorns that got their heads dunked under water for the first time. The testament lay in the fact that the boy was currently sleeping off the effects from the poison-laced claws, although he theorized that there was more to it, on a deeper level.

A slight rustling of clothes caused him to cut his exposed orb over to his matte black-haired student, Uchiha Sasuke, the presumed golden boy of the talented pickings from this year, who sat on a downed log near the impromptu campsite, bridging his fingers and propping them under his chin. He fixedly stared up at the starlit, nighttime sky, taking in the scenic wonder in his characteristic silence. Once again, a shallow huff drifted into the wind from the Copy Ninja's maw.

The elite ninja mused that he behaved so unlike that of his blood relative, Uchiha Obito, who was also his former comrade-in-arms that sacrificed his own life to save Kakashi's hide from evident peril. He vowed to respect the debt of blood owed to him from beyond to guide the lost Uchiha to the light. Even though that obligation stood prevalent, Kakashi felt that he was coming off as a bigot for helping Sasuke more so than the last, known Uzumaki in the Village Hidden amongst the Leaves. His late mentor would never condone such behavior; the manner of playing favorites to aid a solemn, grim individual.

"Um…K-Kakashi-sensei…"

A slender eyebrow rose to his hairline as his line of sight cut to his right at roughly one hundred eighty degrees. The hesitant voice that chimed in to shatter the silence was the third wheel that rounded out the squad: a kunoichi-in-training with cerise-colored tresses and what appeared to be a ruby-red cheongsam over a set of deep-green biker shorts…

Well, maybe black, but the ashen-haired shinobi felt unsure of the color. Putting that errant thought aside, his opinion of Haruno Sakura did not constitute much, at all. She was merely a follower of the crowd; always wanting to do that which was popular. Her actions spoke for themselves. She was not ready—physically or emotionally—to handle this line of work. The hanging thought that skirted about the Copy Ninja's mind hinged on whether or not if she would _ever_ be ready to take this profession seriously.

In layman's terms, his succinct assessments of the three genin boiled down to this vexing conclusion: his team was doomed from the very beginning…

Either way, the girl had his attention. "What can I do for you, Sakura?"

The only girl of Team Seven let loose a shaky mouthful of air and gathered her thoughts into a coherent manner. She seemed less swayed by the two boys' competitive influences, now that the rush of adrenaline had long worn off. "Why…" she muttered in a hoarse whisper out of earshot of the client, "why is Tazuna-san so desperate?" She rubbed her temples through her rosette locks. "Why would he lie to Konoha and risk being murdered…just for a bridge?" Her jade eyes showed many shades of emotion: uncertainty, dread, hopelessness, and so on.

Kakashi pursed together his lips, taking in the context of the hidden question.

_'Why should _we_ do this?'_ he asked himself as he read between the lines.

"Well," their mentor replied after a few seconds, rubbing his chin in the process, "bridges can be the difference between decisive victory or a crushing and humiliating defeat; abject poverty and flourishing riches." He scooted his posterior to get comfortable on the log once more. "Bridges don't have to be concrete, you know. They often have symbolism behind it."

"Like what?" Sakura queried, not completely following. She racked her intellectual brain, but her shaken psyche hindered her coherent thinking patterns.

"For one, bridges join two points together," the Copy Ninja drawled as he cut back to the sizzling embers on the dry firewood. "Two roads converge and run parallel to one another. In addition, a bridge serves as an exchange for foreign ideas; an invitation to the outside world, if you think about it…"

_'However,'_ he sourly reflected, keeping his dark musings to himself, _'something tells me this will all blow sky-high…'_

In hindsight, Kakashi never really liked bridges, which made up one of his numerous dislikes. When it involved intervention by the ninja forces, they were often a hassle to destroy, but very messy to protect.

Oh, how he hated it when his gut proved right…

"Anyway," he briefly uttered, changing the subject, "you should get some rest. I'll keep an eye on things while I speak with our client about our terms." If the headwear could sink any lower on Tazuna's head, then it obviously did as such.

XXXXXXXXXX

(Approximately nine days later…)

_'Damn it!'_ the elite jōnin cursed from within as he nimbly dodged a swipe from a really, _really_ large sword, leaving a hazy line carved out of the chilling fog. _'I can't believe I jinxed it!'_

He detested his instincts, but after almost twenty-three years of active service, said sixth sense saved his skin more times than he could count on his available digits…including his toes. Kakashi's intuition confirmed his suspicions…

Gatō, the greedy merchant who held a strong fist over Nami no Kuni, hired an A-ranked rogue shinobi under his league of henchmen. Momochi Zabuza, former ninja of Kirigakure no Sato who just tried to cleave him in twain, had an accomplice—a bloodline-wielding helper, at that—all along, much to the dismay of Kakashi's own lack of situational awareness. He knew something felt amiss, but it was a shame that he thought on that after their initial encounter, roughly eight days prior.

That led up to his impromptu contingency act: giving his students tips on how to carefully harness and keep better control of their chakra, the vital essence worth its weight in powering techniques, and, to a greater extent, staying power when in a fight against another shinobi. The hardboiled Copy Ninja instructed the three on how to climb trees with chakra alone, and, with enough bumps in the way, each managed to complete it under the allotted time frame.

As he predicted with pinpoint accuracy, Zabuza was, once again, restored to full health after his false death state within the week. However, Kiri's renegade managed to find a way to circumvent his implanted Sharingan eye's deceptive arsenal of illusory techniques, or genjutsu, with the aid of his 'tool,' the one known as Haku, dissecting how he tricked him.

The experienced jōnin planted his feet into the pavement and lowered his heart rate, trying to get a sense of where that despicable man hid himself within his own chakra-induced fog—the Kirigakure no Jutsu.

What if he just attacked him as a distraction? Where would he logically strike once he had him occupied? Once the gears quickly turned in his head, Kakashi frowned ever slightly before dashing to the possible location of their patron and his pink-haired charge.

_'Oh, screw me sideways…_' the gray-haired assassin cynically remarked in his head, worrying over his squad. _'He lured me away to get to the bridge-builder! I have to hurry!'_

XXXXXXXXXX

Within the frigid confines made by Zabuza's apprentice, a boy not much older than the two genin he surrounded appeared as multiples to their field of vision. He looked on, with a heavy heart from behind the unfeeling porcelain that concealed his identity, at how the pair struggled against being outclassed in just about every way possible. The slits over where the eyes were located matched well with the four, squiggly lines that went together with his master's crossed-out insignia, engraved on his plated forehead protector. It gave him a more chilling presence, despite his soft-spoken demeanor.

The loud one in the garish, orange jumpsuit only demonstrated a lack of talent and skill, for he slipped into Haku's Makyō Hyō Shō without any sort of attack plan, whereas any shinobi worth his salt would have easily prepared a counter-offense from outside the range of his bloodline limit, in order to bail out the comrade he trapped.

However, his teammate, the boy speculated, had eyes just like him. Those dark irises (now crimson and ablaze with his own kekkei genkai) showed that the boy had a chip on his shoulder and had something to prove. He was also a victim of circumstance, being the last Uchiha in Konohagakure, all things considered. Both of his foes were approaching their natural limits, but the more talented one managed to nick the hem of his forest-toned battle kimono with a grazing fireball.

For now, the ice-producing prodigy simply aimed for non-vital areas with his threadlike needles, wishing to some spirit out there to end either their suffering or the battle, itself, but a threat to Zabuza-san's plans overrode his personal feelings and had to finish the fight in earnest. Moreover, the Uchiha kid got used to his movements from a combination of his slowing down and the precognitive ability granted to the avenger through his ocular gift.

The orange-clad shinobi, however, tried to stand up, but to no avail. His body felt like lifting a sack of lead on top of his chest.

"I guess I have to end this now," Haku sorrowfully said as he flicked a volley of senbon in the downed boy's direction. Acting purely on instinct and a rush of adrenaline, Sasuke intercepted the salvo in the nick of time, but everything started to feel hazy and groggy as his vision began to quickly fade…

Such was the result of clashing ideals that met at a bridge…

XXXXXXXXXX

The Copy Ninja barely made it in time as he panted and heaved in front of Tazuna and his kunoichi charge, who he ordered to guard the former. His tactical vest was cut open and the blood freely fell onto the pockmarked bridge. Fortunately, Zabuza's Kubikiribōchō, a massive broadsword shaped in the likeness of a gigantic butcher knife, only grazed his chest region, since the flak jacket took the brunt of the impact.

"Kakashi-sensei!" the young girl screeched, the hand holding her kunai shaking violently. Had he not have arrived sooner…

She quickly squashed and pushed that daunting notion out of her mind.

"Looks like you were a little late to the party, Kakashi, and too slow to put up a proper guard," the tall, rogue Mist-nin snidely intoned as he tightened his grip on his Decapitating Carving Knife. The man's black muscle shirt clung tightly to his large frame due to sweat and his special mist technique. "Your wish to keep your little kids safe and out of harm's way made you lose your cool and further clouded that precious Sharingan of yours."

His pompous attitude really grated on Kakashi's nerves, and he vowed to silence him once and for all…with the plan he had cooking up.

_'Zabuza, you just sealed the deal…'_ he triumphantly mused when Kiri's Demon bent down to pick up the blood-soaked, horse-cleaving sword…drenched in Kakashi's precious life essence.

XXXXXXXXXX

Uzumaki Naruto slowly pried open his eyes, shaking the cloudy haze shrouding them. Once his vision cleared, he attempted to get up, but the blue-eyed shinobi only had the strength to roll to the side. His body ached from the puncture wounds brought on by aggravating the imbedded needles within his skin. The boy gritted his teeth while planting an elbow to prop himself up, carefully preventing the senbon in his limb from digging deeper and possibly drawing blood.

The unknown jinchūriki (to his teammates, most certainly) yanked out a few of those damned irritants as he looked on at the masked shinobi in his direct line of sight. Then, he thought he heard the sound of a dripping liquid. His glazed eyes cut over to the right to witness a staggering Sasuke, imitating the likeness of a porcupine, as he lightly swayed on his feet. The feeling of self-satisfaction and joyous glee dropped out in place of sheer horror. His fighting companion intercepted an attack that was meant for him.

"Really, Naruto…Why do you have…to be…such a burden…all the time?" the now-dark-eyed avenger airily asked, his eyelids growing heavier between pants.

"Sasuke…" The bright-eyed boy looked on as if time slowed to a creeping halt. His colleague shinobi, Uchiha Sasuke, began his descent onto the cold concrete, eyes closed. _'I thought he didn't give a damn about me! I thought no one cared…'_

As the effeminate boy melted back into his mirrors, something sparked within Naruto. It was…as if the world froze before him. The ersatz hunter-ninja's voice became drowned out by the thunderous pounding of his own heart in his ears.

His teammate no longer moved. His companion-in-arms—his friend—stood stock still and as cold as the ice hovering over him from all sides, dotted with those insensitive needles. His vision swam at the sight of who was the first person to acknowledge his skills on the battlefield, despite the evident barbs and taunts thrown the blond's way.

The bewhiskered ninja found the power to stand on his own two feet once more, still speckled by that bastard's senbon barrage. His head still bowed downward, his mop of blond hair obscuring his eyes from his foe's view.

"Shut up…" he growled, feeling heat growing from his abdomen as he, himself, rose from one knee. The temperature seemed to steadily increase as steam began to drift off his small frame. Haku looked on, in rapt interest, as the boy snarled in deeper tones.

The guttural bark from Naruto's own voice caused Haku to sweat from behind the delicate porcelain. "You will **pay**…" Suddenly, as if a dam had ruptured, a spike in noxious energy poured off the young ninja's body like raging currents. The tainted, red chakra wildly erupted and shot up into the sky like an uncoiled spring. The rushing deluge of demonic essence ripped through the dried concrete on the bridge, leaving rivulets of unbridled might in its wake.

Ostensibly, the force that shinobi channeled into their talents was never seen by the naked eye, unless in elemental form, but this kid exuded that power by the bucket-loads with raw force alone.

Now resolutely standing, Konoha's scourge glowered directly through the reflections as if they were not there, willing the face of Zabuza's partner-in-crime to burst into flames upon first glance. Instead of the stormy, ocean-blue irises, his eyes shifted into a wine-red complexion with narrow slits for pupils. Naruto felt the rush of power from his unwanted tenant; the bane of his existence…the Kyūbi no Yōko. The flow of evil chakra elucidated the boy's perception as his face contorted due to its influence. His whisker-like birthmarks became shaded, giving his once serene visage a more bestial appearance.

Through gnashed teeth, the invigorated genin let loose an inhuman roar from his throat, the barely contained heat from his ethereal occupant lashing out like an unrestrained inferno and shattering a vast majority of the icy reflections made by his enemy with little to no effort, whatsoever. Not only had that occurred, but the muscles on his body also began to expand at an insane pace, easily pushing out the accursed needles from his rapidly healing skin.

The false hunter-ninja felt the suffocating…_evil_ coming from this mysterious youngster.

_'His wounds are healing! Just who the hell _is _he?'_ Haku wondered in dread when those malevolent eyes stared directly at him, and not the mirror images. Inwardly, his adrenaline spiked as he tried to find a way out, but he doubted that the tide of battle moved in his favor, any longer.

Just like an untamed animal let loose from its confines, the boy got down on all four limbs and began to stalk for his prey.

**"I'll crush you!"** Naruto bellowed as he started a reckless charge.

XXXXXXXXXX

While standing guard over the now-sobered bridge-builder, Sakura trembled in her ninja footwear when she felt that wave of overbearing force wash over her delicate frame. Her emerald irises, filled with curiosity, swung to the right, where Sasuke-kun and Naruto were currently fighting against Zabuza's apprentice.

_'It came from that direction…'_ she surmised, trying, with all her might, to cease her shudders, with no effect. _'Just what on earth is going on? I hope they're all right…'_

XXXXXXXXXX

_'Oh, no…'_ Kakashi quickly glanced back in the direction of that oppressive aura. Almost soon after that explosive burst of energy, the familiar taint of the foul beast's chakra petered out like it was never even there. _'It looks like Sensei's seal is holding, but I got to wrap this up…now!'_

"Say, Zabuza," the Copy Ninja calmly began, twirling his blood-soaked scroll about and idly wondering why his voice did not echo, "I'm a little pressed for time, so how about we quit messing around and go for broke?"

A few meters downwind, he heard a haughty snort, followed by a mirthless guffaw. _'Giving away your position by not projecting your voice to another location…such a rookie mistake…'_

"Try all you want, Kakashi, but it won't work," the Kijin dryly stated from his vantage point. "You're in _my_ jutsu, if I recall correctly."

Kakashi merely shrugged, showing blatant disinterest. "Oh, well…I guess I'll have to smoke you out, then."

Zabuza's eyes became lidded with skepticism. "You're bluffing."

The smirk under his face-mask easily came and went as he ran through a string of hand seals. "For once, I'll humor you."

XXXXXXXXXX

No matter how many senbon he launched at the boy-turned-beast, Haku never had the chance to shake the boy or slow him down. When the Hyōton-user lodged his special needles into the blond, he easily overpowered and forced them out of his body with unrelenting power, shattering more mirrors than he could invoke.

The gentle-hearted kid tried to move to one of his remaining mirror fragments for temporary salvation, but he was easily intercepted with a rough, vice-like grip from a clawed hand. His assailant tightly held onto him before Haku found a burning fist planted right in the middle of the hunter-ninja mask, practically shattering it on impact and sent him skidding across the cold, wet pavement. Were it not for the durable piece of porcelain protecting him, Haku would have had the bones and cartilage in his nose completely shattered.

Naruto, hyped up on the power of a bijū, stormed in on his location, but when the fake oinin shakily heaved up his upper torso through gnashed teeth, along with a closed eye due to the strain, and looked up at his adversary, the blond stopped cold in his tracks.

_'It's him…'_ Naruto thought, completely thunderstruck, as the power from his unwanted tenant began to quickly recede. He sported his normal features, once again; his carmine irises reverted to their sky-blue hue, his whisker-like marks dusting his cheeks became lines, and his mop of hair resumed its usual spikiness. The fading absence of power left him feeling a bit weakened and vulnerable.

"You're that person I met in the woods!" the now-blue-eyed genin shouted in disbelief as he pointed directly at him, fatigue beginning to settle within his frame. "Why didn't you say anything sooner?"

"If you knew my identity from the start," the downed shinobi responded as he shook out the stars from his vision, "then you would have held back, regardless of the circumstances." As Haku slowly got up again, he saw it in the boy's optical orbs at that point; that blissful naïveté and innocence only befitting a mere child. The blond knew not of what lay in store for the path of the ninja. His tone of voice came off as sympathetic, more so than anything. "Maybe, in another time, we could have been friends."

"There'll always be another time, Haku," Naruto naively provided, hoping that he would see him again, but somehow, he highly doubted it.

"No…" Haku looked away, his face giving way to a pained look. "A tool can't be worth meaning if it hasn't fulfilled its purpose…"

"Wait…What are you saying?" Naruto felt at a loss as the bottom fell from under him in realization. "No…You don't mean…"

"Yes," the ice-making boy firmly stated, "I want you to…kill me, Naruto-kun…"

Naruto stood conflicted as he pulled out a kunai from his utility pouch and examined it with a critical eye. The steel, trowel-like knife stared back at him, callous as the object it was. This would mark his first kill in combat, if he went through with it. However, slicing down a defenseless shinobi seemed so…heartless and cruel, to say the least.

"Is this the only solution?" he queried within a gloomy whisper. "Is this the only way, Haku?" He shifted his sights from the combat implement in his numb digits to the boy who asked him a vital question upon their first meeting:

_"Do you…have anyone important to protect?"_

"…" Silence amid the miasma responded in place of the slightly older ninja as he looked away from those pleading eyes.

_'I can't do this…'_ Naruto sadly reflected while loosening his grip on the kunai. _'This isn't fair! This isn't right!'_

**"No…"** a disembodied voice, hollow and full of timbre, whispered into Naruto's left ear, **"it is not…"**

The blond in question quickly whipped his head in that direction, kunai now at the ready, only to meet no one there.

_'What the hell?'_ He lowered his guard again and scratched his head with his open hand. _'What was that just now?'_

**"But…there is…someone you must seek to kill…"** another bodiless entity hissed in indignation.

**"Yes…Kill _him_…"** a different voice growled, venom dripping off its words.

**"End that greasy bastard's tyranny once and for all!"** a fourth tone boomed over Naruto's now-pounding ears.

His body began to tremble, his nerves starting to fray. Naruto's breathing gradually grew short as his eyes frantically looked about in his growing state of panic. Then, out of the corners of his eyes, he caught movement; too quick to be noticed.

XXXXXXXXXX

Haku wondered what was going on with Naruto-kun's hesitant behavior. Had he not resolved his heart already to end another's life?

"Who's there?" the ice-conjurer heard the boy over his own thoughts. Haku's eyebrows wrinkled in bewilderment as he glanced to see Naruto violently swing his kunai all about the place.

XXXXXXXXXX

The blond ninja-in-training howled in dread as he saw them—iridescent bulbs of spectral energy…the source of all those pained shouts and wails.

His teeth clenched together as he tried to drown out those screams with his thoughts, but it proved futile. If anything, more of those souls hovered around him, easily dancing away from his slicing range.

"Go away!" the boy hollered while clamping his hands over his ears, kunai long since foregone and thrown to the concrete. "Leave me alone!"

**"Slaughter that slime-ball, boy! Gatō must _not_ escape!"**

**"If you can hear us, please, we need closure!"**

Meanwhile, as Naruto attempted to shrug off the wayward orbs, Haku felt something crawl against him, causing him to profusely sweat, even though the temperature continued to plummet around them.

_'Just who are you, Naruto-kun? What the hell is going on?'_

Then, he felt it…

Something altered Naruto-kun's life force, but what that was exactly, he could not make heads or tails of it.

XXXXXXXXXX

The blond opened his mouth like he was on the verge of screaming as he felt something creep into his back. It was cold, slimy, and full of regret for crossing over. The yelp hitched in his throat when his eyes took on a green, ethereal tint and faintly burned akin to a low-powered flame.

Then, the bloodcurdling, spine-tingling bawl erupted from his frame as his legs gave out from fatigue and exhaustion, coupled with this new ordeal. His vision swam for a split second before darkness consumed him and fell forward.

XXXXXXXXXX

"Th-that wasn't the Kyūbi…" Kakashi muttered more to himself than his currently restrained opponent, who had his limbs weighed down with his ninja canines. He sighed to mask his confusion and let up on the concentrated lightning covering his palm.

That power…was not evil, but it was inhuman, and yet, he could not really place a label to describe it correctly. He felt the growing cold spots long before his charge's shout of anguish, but it did worry him a rather great deal. His frown soured even more behind his half-mask.

_'There's one thing I hate more than bridges, and that's surprises…'_

XXXXXXXXXX

On a far end of the bridge, a rather stout man with a receding hairline, dressed in a simple, black dress suit, grinned when he heard that cacophonous shriek. Ah, music to his ears! That was just what he wanted to hear; panic, terror, and more…

He supposed it was time to mop up the mess, once and for all.

He progressively walked forward, delicately keeping his damaged arm limp in its sling. His eyes glinted with unspoken brutality from behind his round, mauve-shaded sunglasses. The man felt emboldened to show up a bit early to see the aftermath.

"G-Gatō-sama, are we heading out now?" one of his mercenary goons asked among the strange looks each passed the other.

The balding man, now known as Gatō, the tyrannous mogul of his self-named shipping company, turned around and faced his squad of misfits with a haughty smirk. "The brats are dead. I'm sure of it! Now that they are, I think it's a fitting time to clean up. What do you say?"

"But…but, what about the Kijin?" a man with a bandanna covering his long, brown hair mumbled in fright.

"You don't think…he's dead, too, is he?" someone in the back of the band of soldiers asked among the pregnant pause, his identity unknown.

Gatō drummed a few fingers on his walking cane, his mood steadily growing embittered. However, his greedy smile exploded on his round countenance. _'Time for a little incentive…'_

"If you go now," the tiny tycoon barked, "I'll let you have a piece of the women, but, you break it…you buy it!"

"All right!" a scruffy swordsman whooped as he held up his blade like a commanding officer. "Time to get some hot tail!"

The shouts of approval spread through his clustered crowd like wildfire as the oily magnate inwardly crowed over his plan working well to his advantage.

_'Like sending lambs to the slaughter…and it won't cost me a single ryō…'_

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

**A/N:** Well, I guess I have some explaining to do, folks.

First and foremost, I will _not_ be abandoning The Fox Druid series, even though I am still on the hassle of writing out those blasted fight scenes (not trying to rage and seethe, here). So, on that note, worry not. On the other hand, I realized that the story had been growing rather…dated, in terms of style and execution. In addition, I carefully read through most of the comments and reviews brought up in my first story…and I took them into consideration, for once. With that in mind, I introduce to you the _Forces of Nature Chronicles_, which, I hope to believe, will contain a more unique and much updated fic, barring some of the questionable things Kishimoto has managed to pull off in the most recent canon chapters. Either way, this series will keep close to canon as I will allow, with some evident changes.

I borrowed a few things from my Fox Druid series to implement in this branch continuum (sort of like an AU, in that regard), but the motif I plan to incorporate will have a different set of mechanics behind it. Bear with me while I hash out this series in the making. And yeah, I know that having an extra story will burden me, but, in case I don't feel like working on one story, I can easily hop to another as a mental aperitif, to keep the creative juices flowing.

As per the norm, I would like to give my thanks to the following individuals for making this upcoming series possible:

**EliadS:** Without his constant prodding and probing, I would still be doing R&D and out of practice with writing, in general. In addition to his masterful skills of weaving plots, while I run damage control, we got out most of the wrinkles…at least, I think…

**Arashi the Solar Phoenix:** As always, my go-to pre-reader never lets me down.

**Weixuan18:** He's another awesome pre-reader and quasi-beta, whenever the opportunity arises.

Feel free to leave me good reviews. I need enough encouragement to keep going. Your contributions are always welcomed. And yes, this marks my return from after a long time away. Until next time, ciao for now, and enjoy your day (or night, depending on your time zone)!

Hopefully, I'll get my act together to entertain you all. Later!

**Kanji/Rōmaji Guide**

忠忍 Chūnin: Middle Ninja; also known as a "Journeyman Ninja"

上忍 Jōnin: High Ninja; also known as an "Elite Ninja"

木ノ葉隠れ（の里）Konohagakure (no Sato): Village Hidden among Tree Leaves; in English TV, Hidden Leaf Village

下忍 Genin: Lower Ninja

波の国 Nami no Kuni: Wave Country; in English TV, Land of Waves

霧隠れの里 Kirigakure no Sato: Village Hidden in the Mist; in English TV, Hidden Mist Village

首切り包丁 Kubikiribōchō: literally, "Decapitating Carving Knife"; a massive broadsword shaped like a giant butcher knife, passed down from generation to generation amongst the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist. It has a circle cut out of the top and a semicircle near the handle, with a detachable hilt.

千本 Senbon: dual-pointed needles that have little in the way of killing power, but easily make up for it in terms of targeting acupressure points

人柱力 Jinchūriki: literally, "power of human sacrifice"; a moniker given to those speculated to contain or confirmed to harbor a tailed beast sealed within their bodies; oftentimes, these demon vessels view this label as derogatory and profane

九尾の妖狐 Kyūbi no Yōko: Nine-Tailed Demon Fox; rumored to be the most destructive tailed-beast in existence on the mortal plane

鬼人 Kijin: literally, "Demon Man"; Momochi Zabuza's moniker given to him through his ruthless deeds and actions in Kirigakure, prior to his defection

尾獣 Bijū: literally, "tailed-beast"; the chakra-engines of destruction that either roam the elemental nations or sealed within living, human vessels

追い忍 Oinin: "hunter ninja"; in English TV, "tracker ninja"

両Ryō: the currency used in the _Naruto_ world; according to the databooks, ten Japanese yen equate to a ryō

**Jutsu Guide**

影分身の術 **Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Replication Technique, also known as the Shadow Clone Technique)**: B-rank ninjutsu; other than standard clones, they are, in fact, bodies, and not illusions; any experience or knowledge the clones gain during their existence is transferred to the user once they are dispersed but causes mental fatigue when fully dispelled at one time (as for its multiple variation, the practitioner of this technique creates shadow clones en masse and is an A-rank forbidden technique) (Narutopedia)

写輪眼 **Sharingan (Copy Wheel Eye)**: kekkei genkai of the once-famous Uchiha clan and one of the three great ocular eye techniques, or dōjutsu; unlocked after a stressful event or emotional condition, the evolutionary progression of this bloodline limit is indicated by the number of comma-like marks, or tomoe, around the red irises; the user is granted an advanced perception of clarity, allowing him to detect chakra by color, detect if someone is under a genjutsu, or, at the third tier ability, copy and memorize jutsu the active wielder witnesses, apart from other kekkei genkai-related techniques (Narutopedia)

霧隠れの術 **Kirigakure no Jutsu (Hidden Mist Technique)**: D-rank supplementary ninjutsu; this displacement technique is a specialty of the Ninja from Kirigakure, where one causes a mist to spring forth by lifting up some water, then goes in and out of sight at will from within the pearly-white realm. The mist's thickness is controlled by the amount of chakra kneaded into it (Narutopedia).

魔鏡氷晶 **Makyō Hyō Shō (Demonic Ice Crystal Mirrors)**: unknown rank offensive, close- to mid-range kekkei genkai hijutsu; unique to Haku, this jutsu encircles an opponent with over a dozen mirrors fashioned out of ice. Haku can then enter one of the mirrors from the outside and travel between any of the mirrors at an incredible speed; in fact, the time in transit is almost instantaneous. During transit, Haku can throw senbon needles while remaining virtually unassailable. If the mirror Haku is currently in is shattered, Haku can leap out of one of the fragments and continue his attack. Though they are made from ice, they are pressured with enough chakra to resist fire almost completely. While inside the mirrors, Haku is moving so fast that the outside world appears to move in slow motion. (Narutopedia)

血継限界 **Kekkei Genkai**: literally, 'a technique limited to inheritance by blood,' or 'bloodline limit'; abilities genetically passed down in specific clans; these traits cannot be copied or taught to anyone outside of those family branches

氷遁 **Hyōton**: literally, "Ice Release"


	2. Ch 1: Simmer

**_Chapter One_**_: Simmer_

Haku of the near-extinct Yuki clan managed to regain his composure and control of his body after the surrounding temperature normalized. He took a few, sedate steps and steadied his breathing.

For the life of him, he had no idea of what transpired. The ice-producing ninja numbly felt his right forearm and the site where…_something_…grazed by him and headed straight for Naruto-kun. It sent shivers up his spine in uncertainty when he reflected on that incident. It was not normal. In fact, 'normal' never described their line of work.

Clearing his mind, he took note of both combatants' current conditions. The ice-shinobi heaved a long sigh.

He could not bring himself to kill these two, since they had fallen unconscious, but in different circumstances. Either way, they currently did not stand as obstacles in Zabuza-san's path…for now. Haku slanted his glance to the downed Uchiha, who he put into the same state of contrived death like he had done to Zabuza-san, but unlike that scenario, it was unrehearsed, so, in theory, Sasuke would awaken in due time.

His brown eyes concentrated on the clueless ninja, Naruto, who looked rather unresponsive, but he did breathe on his own, which proved to be a good sign. He tried his best not to gulp when he gazed down at him.

That rush of power, full of intense heat at first, followed by that bone-chilling outcry from another concentration of frigid heaviness, perplexed Haku greatly. That dip in temperature felt far different compared to the ice granted to him by his accursed bloodline ability.

In his wandering thought on the matter, he lost the battle on account of clashing philosophies, but, in the end, there were no decisive victors.

Steeling himself and channeling what little bit of chakra he had remaining into his arms, the Hyōton heir calmly walked over and scooped up both boys on each shoulder.

XXXXXXXXXX

Sakura felt like she had been placed on pins and needles. Several minutes ago, she felt the temperature hit rock bottom and, in her opinion, that was the coldest chill that she had ever encountered, bar none. The rosette-haired female ninja tried to keep her mind and body together, but her resolve began to crumble under the tides of energy. She could not stop her incessant shaking, as evidenced by the rattling kunai in her wavering grip.

What drove her to the brink of tears was that scream almost following the drop in warmth. The sound was so primal…so pained…so agonizing, that anyone with a conscience would have wept at that person's plight.

_'Naruto!'_

Even though she never _really_ liked him all that much, per se (well, correction: she _despised_ him), hearing him in such misery tugged on her heartstrings, making her experience extreme pity, all the while fearing for her life.

Just what, exactly, was happening to him? Everything grew quiet soon after that.

Tazuna gave her right shoulder a tight grasp, perhaps, trying to give her the strength she needed at that time. However, she felt the rapid huffs coming from the bridge builder, the hotness of trepidation drifting from the quickening breaths.

Thinking quickly on the concentration of the heat that preceded the looming frigidity, her mind hastily pushed aside Naruto's unknown condition in favor of what happened to Sasuke-kun.

From what she recalled, the last hope of the Uchiha had a Katon ninjutsu under his belt, which could have been the cause of that warmth.

_'No…'_ she reasoned from within, clinging to doubt. _'That heat was vicious; almost malevolent and far fiercer than what Sasuke-kun could ever produce…'_ Nothing clicked in place. The puzzle remained unsolved. Who unleashed that…evil presence?

Her pupils shrank to dots as she started to piece together of what possibly took place within the dense cloud of mist.

_'Did…did they lose to that Haku person?'_

She stabilized her breathing and tried to reaffirm her determination, but that proved useless, for, in that moment, her nightmares had come to fruition…

A silhouette parted through the veil of hanging vapors.

Her heart leapt into her throat when she saw the now-unmasked boy, Haku, carrying both of her teammates on his shoulders…and was headed her way…

On instinct alone, she protectively took a step in front of Tazuna and clenched the kunai in her hand as her last lifeline, her knuckles whitening due to the amount of force she applied.

_'What the hell am I supposed to do, now?'_ she frightfully wondered, attempting to maintain a scowl on her face to keep her act of bravado in place. _'I can't beat him!'_

Before she tried to speak, however, the sounds of marching footsteps and steel grinding against the pavement forced confusion to replace the despair superficially hidden beneath.

She blinked. _'What now?'_

XXXXXXXXXX

Meanwhile, on the end of the bridge closest to the port city, Kakashi pondered over killing the Demon of the Hidden Mist, or keeping him alive to prove his usefulness. The heavy mist began to clear a bit, so he had the ability to see where Zabuza stood, rooted to the moistened concrete. Even though his vision was clearing, his thoughts, on the other hand, were not.

More than likely, his kids had fallen in combat against Zabuza's apprentice. That…was rather disconcerting, when he wondered about that.

_'No,'_ he told himself as his personality conflicted with his job, _'I have to keep focused and stay strong. I just have to believe in their power…for better or for worse…'_

Noting the silence on their end of the bridge, he hoped to the many kami out there hearing his silent prayers that his side came out with a triumph, but by the skin of their teeth.

His gut, however, told him to relent on running his Raikiri through him in vengeance, much to the Copy Ninja's chagrin, so that must have been a good sign…or the calm before the eventual storm. _'I sure hope my instincts are right, though…'_

"You know," Kakashi spoke out after a period of silence, "in spite of the claims I mentioned to you earlier, Zabuza, I think we should stop this battle immediately." However, on the condition that he was going to get attacked, he held a loose stance that gave off the feeling of retaliation, should the need ever arise.

The restrained rogue ninja snorted in derision. "What makes you think I won't cut you in two after you command your slobbering mutts to release me?"

Instead, the ashen-haired assassin coolly ignored Zabuza's question in favor of another. "You felt that shift in energy, didn't you?"

The Hidden Mist Demon's face contorted into a bored expression. "What of it?"

A slender eyebrow rose to Kakashi's hairline. "You mean to tell me you're not the least bit curious about it? Not even worried about it?"

Zabuza simply grunted, either from disinterest or one of his damned hounds digging into his scapula. "Nope. I still don't give a damn." His hold on his vitally important blade, nevertheless, tightened considerably. Inwardly, though, he carefully hid his growing interest.

Just as the Copy Ninja opened his mouth, a small, brown pug dislodged himself from Zabuza's body and peered up. The diminutive canine sniffed around when his ears, normally droopy, twitched.

Kakashi noticed his canine pack's spokesman and how he looked distracted. He suspected that something felt amiss to his de facto canine leader. "What's going on, Pakkun?"

**"I sense movement, Kakashi, as well as smelling some bad odors coming from that way,"** the pug gruffly responded while waving a paw in front of his burning nose. It almost made him tear up by the nauseating stenches rolling off their bodies. **"I hear heavy footfalls a good distance upwind, too."**

"How many?" The Copy Ninja had a rather nasty flesh wound on his chest, running low on chakra, and felt winded. He had to mentally prepare himself for the oncoming slugfest, but if they were merely mercenaries, then, in his judgment, it would not put him under such stress.

The tawny quadruped tried to get an accurate reading through distinct smells, though it was proving sort of difficult. **"Since the scents are all bunched up, I can't say for sure, but…" ** He took his time to inhale once more. **"…Wait…"** His usually hangdog look assumed a look of surprise. **"There are at least forty in number, clustered around one who smells of…the most exquisite cologne that this nose has ever sensed…"**

_'Focus, Pakkun…'_ Kakashi tried his best to not place his face within the palm of his hand. Oddly enough, he would have probably described it in that manner, too.

The seasoned shinobi then cut his eyes to his pinned-down captive, who looked…contemplative.

"It's that spineless coward…" the Kijin uttered as if he sucked on something bitter. That bald man surely had the gall to show up to flaunt his efforts. "He's early."

"Hm…" Kakashi found that even more cause for alarm. _'Gatō? What's he doing here?'_

While the mist almost completely lifted, the hardboiled veteran mulled over what to do with him, now. He had limited possibilities, but one tried to stick out within his mind's eye.

_'I can use him like that vermin, Gatō, is using him, who is using Haku as his tool…'_

He felt it right to initiate mind games to work the situation in his favor.

"Looks like your employer turned on you, Zabuza," the gray-haired ninja evenly commented, his mind playing out a new scenario and coming up with an idea. "So, what will you do, hm?" For emphasis, a lone eyebrow creased upward, displaying the Copy Ninja's subtle haughtiness.

The Demon merely growled, coincidentally synchronizing with the ninja canine pack holding him down.

Kakashi felt the wind shift and blow away the remaining fog, which made him turn around…

_'Just peachy…'_ he grimly cogitated, keeping his growing panic in check. He saw Haku holding Naruto, who looked fine but a bit worse for wear, and Sasuke, who was riddled with all sorts of senbon over his body. Both of his students seemingly appeared to be in a bad state, on his two, frail shoulders, approaching his kunoichi charge—who looked like she was on the verge of a mental breakdown—and their client. _'This situation just went to hell in a hand-basket…'_

"Looks like the tides have turned, Copy Ninja Kakashi," Zabuza retorted before mirthlessly chortling. Now, he had the bargaining chips for a potential ransom: his duo of brats for the drunken geezer's head.

Regrettably, his humorless laugh died in the wind when a taunting snicker sliced the tense atmosphere.

"Look, boys, just like what I told you!" the avaricious tycoon bellowed over the taut ambiance as he walked up with purpose. His annoying guffaw erupted like hot lava from a volcano, throwing spittle this way and that. "The ninja just slash each other's throats over money, and now, we can finish off the leftovers! Now," he turned his sights on Zabuza's apprentice, "starting with you, _boy_…" The ear-to-ear grin would have had lesser men cower in terror, but in the presence of experienced shinobi…

The resulting shouts of praise thrown the tyrant's way only caused the jōnin to narrow their eyes at the same time, but for different reasons. Such arrogance and filth, gallivanting around like the parasite he was!

_'Leftovers, huh?'_ the Demon of the Hidden Mist mulled over in his brain with a sadistic glee. _'You won't have anything left over of you, when I get my hands on you, you two-timing coward…'_

"Kakashi," Zabuza gravelly intoned, rage beginning to spike, "call off your dogs. It looks like we are enemies, no longer. The deal I made with that scumbag is over."

With a simple, shooing wave, Kakashi's ninken disappeared in eight, distinct puffs of smoke. "So, what now?" he asked again, fishing for a response.

"Normally, I'm not for this," the rogue began in his strident tone, "but, how about a little, friendly wager?" The glint in the bulky man's eyes exuded an effervescent fury threatening to spill over.

"Oh?" The Demon had his attention as his vision cut to his right. "I'm usually not a betting man, but what do you have in mind?" He critically gazed at him with his normal eye opened. It would not do him good to keep the chakra running while his implanted Sharingan remained exposed and zapped him dry of his energy supply.

Zabuza clearly read the subtext of Kakashi's body language; not only did he not trust him, but if he turned on him in their temporary alliance, there would be dire consequences.

The former Kiri-nin slowly moved his open hand to the white bandages covering the lower half of his visage and ripped them off. Now, Kakashi was able to see his sharp-toothed grin. "For once, I'll humor you." The top row of the ashen-haired genius' teeth slowly grated against the bottom, indicating his mounting annoyance.

Yet again, that hit home on the Copy Ninja's growing list of pet peeves: having his taunts thrown right back at him.

The Kijin, on the other hand, continued, despite the tree-hugger's budding irritation. "Haku is too soft for his own good…" He let out a shallow sigh, resisting the urge to shake his head, which made the jōnin nearby him curiously glance in his direction. "Your little runts aren't dead, by the way."

Once he heard Zabuza utter those words, a rush of relief flooded the Copy Ninja's veins. Upon careful examination from that distance, he saw their chest cavities rhythmically expand and contract.

"Don't get too comfortable with this temporary truce, Kakashi," Zabuza growled out. "After this situation is settled, we're leaving."

The brighter-haired elite ninja simply nodded. It was not like he was going to join with them. After all, finagling runaway shinobi from one hidden village to join another had its own set of obstacles and red tape. They held no allegiance to anyone, so they could never be wholly trusted. Since they turned away from their native lands, what would allow them to settle into another country with open arms, knowing that they might do the same thing again?

"It would behoove us to join forces…Well, just this once…" Kakashi noted with a detached shrug of his shoulders, slowly relaxing them in his loose stance. To further conserve on chakra, he yanked down his hitai-ate and covered up his Sharingan. _'Not like I need it, anyway…'_

The Demon, true to his namesake, allowed a bestial grin to explode onto his face. "Fastest one to Gatō gets the bulk of his assets, once we…interrogate him. How about it, Kakashi?"

_'Ah…A blood race, you suggest?'_ The slightly smaller jōnin sized up his transient ally. Deep down, and too proud to admit it, he liked the stakes. It felt like a win-win solution; cut down the scum of the world and earn more money for it in one fell swoop. "You're on."

XXXXXXXXXX

_A hushed groan escaped through clenched teeth._

_"Ugh…My body…feels so heavy…"_

_One blue eye began to open on the right side of his face. With enough willpower, Naruto forced open his other orb to take in the hazy clouds of white dancing about his line of sight._

_"Am I…dreaming?" he mumbled to himself. The young boy willed one of his hands to rub down his face, trying, with all his might, to suppress the pounding headache and the blurry vision. A shaky sigh found its way to escape his dry mouth as he bent his elbows to prop up his hammered frame._

_While Naruto looked around, as far as his eyes were able to see, a heavy curtain of fog draped all over him, and his visibility was reduced to zero. In other words, the ominous mist mirrored that of what he witnessed during this entire mission._

_"All right…Now, where the hell am I?" he asked aloud to no one in particular as his frustration rose._

_His answer came in the form of those bright balls that he had seen before his world went dark. Some hovered near him while others sped past him to parts unknown._

_"Just what are these things?" He critically stared at the silver orb that lazily floated across his eyesight. He knew that they were not constructs made of chakra; otherwise, he would be able to get a feel of their auras._

_He quelled his growing panic and focused more. Then, he felt—or rather, heard—the suspended sphere among the hushed whispers and dull wails._

**_"To enlighten you, we are spirits…"_**_ it tonelessly answered, pulsating in an erratic fashion in tandem with its speech patterns. Seeing the boy owlishly blink in confusion caused the glowing phantom to heave an airy sigh. **"That means you're speaking with those that have crossed over…or, in simple terms, those who have died, but have not passed on…"**_

_"Gah!" Naruto felt the chill run up and down his spine when his survivalist instincts kicked in. That caused him to jump a bit away from it. He was deathly afraid of ghosts, but never admitted it to anyone. Maybe his fear stemmed from a particular phobia of the unknown, but, either way, he and ghosts never meshed well._

'Why me, of all people…?'_ he thought in elevated fright, knees trembling a slight amount._ 'Why do I have to see dead people?'

**_"Alas, we know not of the reason as to how come you can hear and speak with us, child,"_**_ it helplessly supplied as it whizzed by, into the distance. **"Perhaps, there is a method to the madness…for you, that is…"** The spirit was gone far before Naruto had the chance to question it any further._

_"Wait!" the boy commanded with an open hand spread outward, but to no avail. "Damn…" He let loose a throaty sigh._

_If the boy put any amount of money on his current situation, despite his string of odd luck, then he would assume that his rival would laugh at how shaken up he was over something as 'trivial' as ghosts._

_"They aren't real, so don't waste your breath," he imagined Sasuke saying in a condescending fashion._

_He balled his hands so tightly that his knuckles turned white._

_"I won't have him one-up me again!" Naruto declared with a tone of conviction. Whatever happened to him in this mysterious world, he vowed to endure it with his unbreakable spirit and headstrong attitude._

_It did still unnerve him, on the other hand, but that did not dampen his determination. If it meant conquering one of his irrational fears, then that would make him stronger as an individual._

XXXXXXXXXX

The Copy Ninja from Konoha and the Demon from Kiri measured up their competition like blades of grass ready to get mowed down to size. They honestly had it coming, since they wanted to go turncoat on the former Mist-ninja from the start, anyway.

Zabuza hummed to himself as he loosened up his biceps. "Forty, gutless yellow-bellies against two seasoned shinobi…Looks like the odds are in our favor…" If his grin grew any larger than what it was, currently, then it did. "Which route are you taking, Kakashi?"

"Any reason why you want to know?" the gray-haired jōnin responded with a question of his own, right eyebrow jutting upward.

"I don't want you spoiling my fun, or I'll have to dice you in two if you get in my way, like my earlier boast," the Kijin deadpanned.

"Well," Kakashi flatly spoke up, "I guess I'll take the left side, then."

The pale-skinned shinobi allowed a loaded chuckle to escape his maw. "Ha! Those ones look lazy. You're trying to pull a fast one on me, you bastard."

"What's the matter?" Kakashi evenly countered as they slowly walked up toward their respective charges. "Looking for an excuse?"

"Their guard is down! Let's rush 'em!" one brave, but foolhardy, rōnin exclaimed and charged at the two of them.

Unfortunately, for him, he got lulled into a false sense of security. The banter exchanged between the two ninja merely posed as a feint to force the rogues' hand first, keeping them guessing and off-balance.

The pitiful man saw neither the large sword plunged into his torso nor the kunai imbedded into his skull at roughly the same time.

"First blood is mine!" both tried to shout over the other.

"In your dreams, Kakashi!" the Demon bellowed through grating teeth as he cut his eyes over to his temporary accomplice in battle. "My sword clearly had the advantage of reach!" For emphasis, he jabbed said blade a few centimeters deeper before wrenching it back to where it had been.

"Oh?" Kakashi was not willing to concede to the Demon's claim. "That's why I balanced it out by launching my kunai before you raised your hand to that big sword of yours." As an aside, he added, fluttering a hand lazily into the air, "I still think you're overcompensating for something else, if you depend too much on that zanbatō."

"How about you go to hell?" Zabuza groused. "I'll be more than happy to give you a one-way ticket there, all expenses paid."

"Nah," Kakashi deflected with a dismissive wave of the hand, "I'll pass on that dance." He leveled a steady gaze toward the rest of the thugs under Gatō's paychecks. "So, who's next?" he drawled as their companion fell in a crumpling heap among their ninja sandals. "Any takers? Going once…"

The pudgy merchant came closer to a heart attack as they inched their way to his spot. "P-Put those shinobi six feet under!" he commanded his cronies with a waning bluster. "Keep them off my back, and I'll reward you considerably!"

His words ignited the powder keg. His task force charged headlong at the two deranged and seemingly unhinged shinobi.

"Looks like it's time to tango…" Zabuza noted with a deadly gleam in his eyes.

"Cue the music, and let's cut a rug!" the Copy Ninja outwardly mused as they rushed the oncoming fray.

XXXXXXXXXX

The dark-haired, effeminate shinobi looked on, in a dazed wonder, at how clean and calculated his mentor bobbed, wove, and cleaved his way through the masses, in tandem with the foreign-ninja's sensei. He easily sidestepped and strafed to the side of sloppy sword strikes and other bludgeoning weaponry and retaliated in earnest with graceful strokes of his large blade. To the young boy, it appeared to flow like a woven tapestry of an untold dance to the death.

His fellow watcher, on the other hand, did not feel the same way, in terms of sentiments.

As soon as Sakura heard the sound of rending flesh from bone, she quickly turned away and bit her lip, all the while feeling a tad squeamish. She wanted to maintain what little of her innocence she had left after this harrowing ordeal.

A hand rose to her mouth as she tried to conceal her gagging fits. She felt like she was ready to hurl…

A gentle hand on her shoulder caused her to unexpectedly jump and shy away from the female-like ninja near her.

The edge of her kunai shakily pointed toward the enemy. "Stay away from me!" she screeched as she brandished her sharpened trowel in a threatening gesture. "Why are you here?"

"Relax," the ice-conjuring shinobi calmly intoned, trying to assuage the young girl's worries and fears. He held up his hands in a placating gesture. "Our contract with Gatō has become null and void. We don't have to fight. In fact, our masters are fighting side by side…"

"…" The cerise-locked kunoichi did not budge. "I still don't trust you…"

"Nor should you," Haku sadly replied, sincerity leaking in his voice. He then motioned to where he had placed her teammates. "I brought over your companions, as a sign of good faith…"

Sakura's eyes narrowed to slits and her facial expression soured.

Haku managed to elicit a saddened smile. "Your teammates are alive, and I have lost…"

Now, the pink-haired kunoichi curiously stared at this former enemy. She still shuffled her smaller frame to keep him from assaulting their client. "What do you mean by that? You walked away from a fight. Does that make you a winner?"

"No," he evenly responded, with no wavering in his tone, "I lost on the terms of my outlook on life, and it was all thanks to Naruto-kun for showing me…that I do have purpose…"

The only female among the trio stood rooted in place, thunderstruck by that bit of news. _'Naruto…the dead-last…beat him…and not Sasuke-kun…? Just what on earth is going on?'_

The old bridge-builder, meanwhile, stood close by the one designated to protect him, in thoughtful silence. He did not know how honest this Haku kid was being, so, it felt obvious to him to move away from the new arrival. The immediate shift from enemies to allies usually clashed with the feeling of paranoia and reluctance from both sides.

Seeing that the odds into his survival increased, he quietly prayed to the Jizō Bosatsu for answering his prayers. He felt sober, for once, in a time of clarity.

XXXXXXXXXX

Pandemonium erupted onto the bridge once things got under way. In order to conserve as much energy as possible, the two jōnin decided to cut back on using chakra and just resort to the classic nab-and-stab method—quicker, more precise, and more convenient to shred down the number of adversaries in their warpath.

"Tally's at nine, Zabuza!" Kakashi called out as he retrieved his stabbing implement from the jugular vein of a fallen mercenary and shook off the dripping blood with a flick of his wrist.

"You must be getting soft in your years, Kakashi," the Demon of the Hidden Mist rumbled. He all but yanked his enlarged sword from a dead man's torso whose life he had seen leave from his frightened eyes. He decided to taunt for good measure. "I'm at eleven. Try to keep up."

_'I'm not _that _much older…'_ the ashen-haired assassin bitterly reflected.

A duo of kunai imbedded themselves into two bandits' throats while the Copy Ninja distractedly looked in Zabuza's direction. "Now, we're even," he deadpanned. Suddenly, his instincts told him to quickly twirl around, grab the incoming mercenary's hairy arm, twist it around his back and snap the poor man's neck in a little less than a second. "…And I just took the lead." That irritating eye-smile of his irked the Demon as the fresh corpse crumpled in on itself as it fell to Kakashi's feet.

Zabuza bared his shark-like teeth in a snarl before promptly clubbing an enemy with the hilt of his zanbatō. The blunt-force trauma practically caved in the greasy vagrant's skull before blood poured out of any open orifice on his visage. He expired before he hit the wet concrete.

"Another one bites the dust…" he murmured before delivering a swift kick to the falling hoodlum's chest, knocking the lifeless body into three others. "Which one of you punks is next?" A wrinkle of skin creased upward where the Kijin's eyebrows should have been placed. His muscles twitched in anticipation.

By now, Gatō came close to defecating and urinating in his pants…all at once. This was not supposed to happen! His plan, right before his beady eyes, burst into flames and came crashing down. This was not what he had in mind.

_'I…I got to get the hell out of here!'_ he whined from within as the beads of sweat glossed his dripping forehead. He tried to back away before something blocked his path and caused him to stop in his shoddy getaway.

"Going somewhere, you slime-ball?"

The ominous voice behind him just about made him leap out of his skin. There, right before his eyes, was none other than Momochi Zabuza…a mere specter drenched in the blood of Gatō's cohorts…with a deadly glint in his eyes that shone like eerie lights. An oppressive aura of murderous intent hung around the tall shinobi's frame like the veil of mist that surrounded them.

"P-P-Please!" the corporate mogul pleaded while on his knees, distraught and cornered, with nowhere to go. "I beg of you…" He held up his shaking, sweat-drenched hands in front of his face.

Zabuza's gaze grew stony. "Men of honor never beg for their lives when death is at the hands of their persecutor." Now seeing the last thug fall by the Copy Ninja's kunai, his mouth edged into a flat line. "Gatō…you worthless piece of shit…" The Kijin then bypassed the tycoon's slapdash defense and socked the man in the jaw with a rock-hard left jab, promptly knocking him out cold. "I'm not done with you, yet."

XXXXXXXXXX

_Noting to himself that aimlessly wandering around this strange world did not bring up any answers to the questions firing away in the back of his mind, Naruto decided to sit still—a rarity, if anything—in the hopes of letting said answers come to him._

_Fidgeting a bit as he eased into a seated position, he closed his eyes and tried to get a feel of his surroundings._

_The young ninja-in-training felt strange to stay in one place for a long period of time, but he felt it natural to do so. Then again, he all but missed out on his former instructor's lessons on meditation to sharpen the focus of the mind. That or he barely paid any attention to Iruka-sensei's lessons if his life counted on it._

_The blond tried to calm his rapidly beating heart by taking in long, drawn-out breaths, in order to steady his nerves. He still did not like hovering in a world of ghosts. The very thought spooked him…_

_Pun very much intended._

_"No…" Naruto declared with firm gusto before shaking his head. "I can't let this get the best of me!"_

_Grinding his teeth against each other, the boy relaxed his shoulders, loosened his jaw and felt his body sway like a blade of grass in an empty field on a windy day minutes afterward._

_Then, it clicked inside his head, despite his dense demeanor._

_The voices called out to him, but he felt them more than he heard them. A degree of clarity between each voice fell upon him like drops of water from a tree leaf onto a calm pond. The rippling echoes of the fallen beckoned to be heard; they desired to be acknowledged, just like him._

'They're all lonely…and…' _Naruto grasped at the words that bombarded his mind, _'…they seem…so sad…'

_With a weighted heart, he listened to them, but one voice started to stick out like the prominent busts of the Hokage Rock monument._

_Slowly, as if he was compelled to, Naruto pointed to the flickering light in the distance that started to sparkle like a star in the twilight sky._

_"You," he declared with eyes still half-lidded, "come…"_

_The luminous specter emitted two flashes before it zoomed around and zipped its way around the seated shinobi._

_The white orb revolved around a curious Naruto two times before the light started to expand in front of him. The young ninja cut his eyes to slits and glanced away when things felt a bit brighter._

_As the glaring luminescence petered out, the blond turned back to a rather imposing figure that stood larger than life, bar for one exception that left the image out of place…_

_The hulking figure held a severed head in the cuff of a mangled right arm…and the broad-shouldered figure had no head attached to his neck…_

_"Gah!"_

_Naruto scooted back as quickly as a ninja who performed a quick Body Flicker when the spirit came forth. He never expected seeing tormented souls like the one who showed up in front of him upon his command._

_The cleaved head, which had a spiky hairstyle with a rope akin to a fisher's knot that was tied around his forehead, glanced around this special realm in wonder. **"This is unusual,"** it spoke with a flat, but distant, tone. The defiled arms of the tall man moved to place the head back on its shoulders and stuck as much as it allowed, without it falling off._

_"Wh-who are you?" Naruto screeched while shakily pointing at the decapitated phantom. The man was a bloody mess. His tattered attire had maroon stains splotched over it. It looked like he had gone through a meat grinder before he got brutally taken from the world of the living. On the other hand, the scar on the cleft of his chin jostled the boy's fuzzy memory. It was...as if he had seen his face, but he just could not recall the dead man's name._

_It took a few seconds for the question to register with the deceased. **"I…Who am I?"** he asked himself. His voice emitted a distorted echo soon after. Before long, his name surged through him from within. He remembered his past life. **"I…am Kaiza…"**_

_"Kaiza?" The name sounded familiar. Why was it not coming to him?_

**_"You look just as confused as I am,"_**_ Kaiza remarked before showing off a lighthearted grin._

_"I'm not!" Naruto yelped. He then added on with a slight murmur, "I…just don't know where I am, is all…"_

_The elder of the two let loose a soft chuckle. **"It's all right."** The deceased Hero of the Wave tried to look around without knocking his head off his shoulders. **"Should we walk and talk, young man? Your look tells me that you have a lot of questions…and that you want answers."**_

_Naruto gulped for good measure just as he stood up. For some reason, the tone of voice elicited from this Kaiza character urged him to trust this person…er, spirit, or whatever…_

'Well, except for ghost,' _he hastily thought, trying his best to keep his composure and correct himself._

_"I do," he warily intoned. With a brisk pace, he walked alongside the beckoned soul._

XXXXXXXXXX

_As Naruto walked at a slower pace with this mysterious man in an unfamiliar world, he started to feel more at ease with him. Aside from light talk, the blond did not manage to gather much of anything._

_"So, this is the world of spirits, huh?" the boy hazarded a guess as he still looked all around him._

**_"From what I've gathered, this is but a fragment of the entire spirit realm,"_**_ the older of the two answered to the best of his ability. **"There's much more to it than just this small corner."**_

_Naruto stood rooted to the spot with a confused look donning his features. "You mean to tell me there's more?" He did not like the way this was going. More ghosts to come across?_

_Kaiza scratched the side of his head with a hesitant grin lodged in place. **"Heh…Well, yes…I think…"** Now, he was not sounding very sure. **"I've only heard about it in passing. I haven't personally been to the other worlds, myself…"**_

_"Say, Kaiza-ojichan…"_

_The man held up a hand. **"I wouldn't say that I'm an old man. I was thirty when I died,"** the Hero of the Wave retorted in defense of his age._

_"Did you leave behind any…family?" Naruto's curiosity got the better of him, so the question rolled off his tongue without preamble._

_He heard the man heave a long, wistful sigh as he slowly looked off into the distant blanket of fog. **"A son, a wife, and a father-in-law,"** the shaggy brunet answered, melancholy drenching his response at the same time. He turned to his right to meet Naruto's gaze. **"Why do you ask?"**_

_"I don't know," the young genin uttered while averting said sorrowful gaze. "I guess…it just came to me. That's all…"_

**_"I didn't have any regrets for dying, but…"_**_ He shifted his gaze to look up at nothing in particular._

_Noticing how Kaiza trailed off, Naruto tried to prompt him with a slight nudge, only to pass through his body. That made the little boy shy away from the apparition of a man waist-deep into his own thoughts._

_Kaiza saw Naruto stumble and balk when he tried to touch him—currently, an intangible spirit, which shook him from his reverie. **"Oh, sorry,"** he amended with a warm look on his face. **"I must have zoned out for a second, there."**_

_"Eh…No biggie," Naruto waved it off. "What were you about to finish saying, anyway?"_

_Kaiza hummed to himself before balling his fists. **"I wished…that I could have done more for my people. I fought with everything I had, but in the end, **_**he _made an example out of me…"_**

_"Who is he?" Naruto dared to ask._

**_"Gatō…"_**

'Ah, no wonder he looked familiar,' _Naruto reasoned as the light bulb finally lit up within his mind. _'He's the Legendary Hero of Nami no Kuni!'

_"Everything's starting to make sense, now…"_

**_"Hm?"_**_ One lone eyebrow rose up to Kaiza's pallid face._

_"You were the one who gave his life for Wave Country, but Gatō killed you to prove a point and keep the people in check!"_

_Kaiza owlishly blinked. **"Uh…Thanks for the jab at my death, I guess…"** Then, all of a sudden, a smile managed to find its way back to his face._

_Naruto then had the audacity to look sheepish. "Oh, sorry…"_

**'He's not all that bright, isn't he?'** _the deceased Hero asked himself as he shook his head._

_Naruto was about to tack on more to his apology, but he started to feel a bit lightheaded. Blinking a few times, he noticed that his body started to look…clear…as if he could see through his entire body…_

_"Hey, wait! What's going on?" Naruto inquired, panicking a significant amount._

**_"Your body is to the point that you can wake up in the real world. Your image here is becoming translucent."_**

_"Translucent?"_

_Did he really have to spell it out for this seemingly clueless individual?** "You can see through your whole body more and more…"**_

_"Oh, no!" Naruto shrieked. "I wanted to ask you about more stuff, but…"_

**_"Listen, Naruto,"_**_ Kaiza calmly addressed the uppity ninja, **"before you fully come to, I want you to pass on a message to my family. It's important that they hear it."**_

_"Sure," the blond hastily spoke, "but make it kind of quick…" He looked like a mere outline as his essence started to fade._

_The blond strained to listen, since the disembodied voice of the deceased Hero of the Wave drowned itself within a hanging silence…_

_However, the shinobi saw the craftsman's lips and read them before he completely vanished into thin air._

XXXXXXXXXX

The blue-eyed shinobi's eyes fluttered open, taking in the strange quiet all the while staring up at the rather dingy ceiling of Tazuna's humble abode. A shift in movement caused Naruto to move his cerulean orbs in the direction of the subtle sound.

_'Huh? Sakura-chan?'_

Sure enough, his female teammate had adjusted her attire. However, what caught his attention almost made him get up and ask what was wrong…well, had he had the strength, but he felt so weak for reasons beyond his control. She looked like a mess; her normally glossy hair had been soaked and lost its luster. She also kept her tear-streaked gaze to the somewhat dusty, wooden floor.

He wanted to comfort her, even though she never wanted him to be there for her. He supposed that words could help for now. He sucked in some air to speak, but he was cut off before he had the chance to utter even a word.

"Hn," Naruto heard a snort from behind his head. He strained to look up as his eyes took in dark, brooding irises and fair skin. True to character, Sasuke stood over the downed genin, arms crossed over his chest, with an impassive expression. "It took you long enough to wake up."

The youngest of the genin trio bit back a growl as he started to fling the covers off his body. What was eating at him, anyway? "Easier for you to say," Naruto muttered under his breath. While righting himself, he noticed that the lodge was empty. "Hey, where's Kakashi-sensei?" He saw his rival's body tighten up almost at the same time that his childhood crush flinched. "What's the matter?" Naruto felt his heartbeat quickening. "What's going on? Answer me!" He panned his frantic gaze from one member of Team Seven to the other.

"He's…" Sakura did not know how to phrase it. "…down the hall…with Zabuza…"

Now, Naruto was in battle mode. Adrenaline flowed through his system as he stood in a crouch and reached for his kunai holster, but came up empty. "What the…?"

"Relax, moron," the onyx-eyed Uchiha snipped. "They're interrogating that Gatō guy."

The blue-eyed shinobi then looked confused—his typical trademark. "Wait…Zabuza? What's he doing here?" Suddenly, his eyes froze over into steely glaciers. "As far as I'm concerned, he's still the enemy!"

Sasuke took in a deep breath and let loose a really heavy sigh. "Get a hold of yourself, Naruto," he all but chided. "Sakura filled me in on what happened." Arms still locked over his chest, the lone wolf paced around. "Your scream," the Uchiha heir paused to point a single finger in the blond's direction, "from one end of the bridge made Gatō a bit cocky and caused him to storm in a little too early. Kakashi and Zabuza mowed down his goons and took him captive, before the townspeople showed up. They're grilling him for information as we speak."

"And Haku?"

"He's outside the door." Thumbing in a particular direction, Sasuke snorted again while rolling his eyes. "It's not like they need the help." Inwardly, he fumed. _'How could I have been beaten so easily by that other ninja?'_ he kept questioning himself. However, he swallowed his pride since they no longer expressed hostility toward one another. From one bloodline ninja to another, he gave him a grudging respect.

Even though he did not want to personally admit it, the scion of the Uchiha clan had a burning desire to throw himself into training the minute he was given permission.

Naruto looked over and saw his rosette-haired teammate shudder. Sakura had immediately recalled the unnatural gleam in the rumored Demon's eyes before he shut the door prior to the questioning. Before the wooden entrance closed, she saw the heinous mogul in question tied up to a chair, sweating profusely from head to toe and looking at her with eyes that begged for mercy.

Something that she, herself, could not grant…

It was out of her hands, anyhow, with Zabuza's definitive statements:

_"Now, why don't you go into the other room with the others, while we have…a grown-folks' conversation? Haku, guard the door. I don't like to be…_interrupted_…while I work…"_

The youngest genin attempted to stand, but was held down by his shoulders by his rival. "Hey, what gives? Let me go, damn it!"

The cool-headed team member kept the blond boy at bay. "I think you should stay here. They sealed off the sounds they would make with some silencing technique. We can't hear them…nor should we barge in on them."

XXXXXXXXXX

Meanwhile, in the other room of the quaint sea lodge, a bruised, battered, and bloody Gatō spit out a tooth with thick spittle onto the floor. His expensive sunglasses had long since been broken and haphazardly fell, bent at the frame that gripped the bridge of his nose. All the man could do was sit there and groan, with pain receptors firing off erratically among his synapses.

That was courtesy of another punch from Konoha's infamous Copy Ninja.

Between the back-and-forth banter, the two vied for trying to get the little pig to squeal by applying their specific scare tactics.

From the subtle genjutsu to the vengeful punches dealt to the now-helpless, tied-up merchant, currently wading in a pool of his own hemoglobin, it did not take long for the greasy man to crack.

No more than four minutes into their 'interrogation' did Gatō utter something. He did not just squeal…he sang like a canary! They gathered some mildly pertinent information from the greedy merchant: his assets, funds, and any deep-cover agents worth mentioning, but none of those operatives registered as threats to Konoha. On the other hand, Zabuza committed the names to memory, since they appeared to be of some interest to him, in due time. The two then decided to up the ante on one another by applying a little more excessive force than necessary after getting what they wanted from the soon-to-be dead man.

Consider it a matter of venting their frustrations.

"I gotta admit," Zabuza muttered across Gatō's gargling moans, "that you tree-huggers aren't so half-bad, but your interrogation methods suck, for lack of a better word."

"Well," Kakashi countered as he held up the tyrant's head, "in our defense, we use more…subtle strategies to get enemies to spill their guts." His exposed eye closed in an upward fashion, denoting his smile underneath all the cloth. "Now, you lot in Kiri?" He shook his head. "You are pretty barbaric, if you don't mind my criticizing."

"Stuff it," the Kijin retorted. "We get our information…" Then, he narrowed his eyes to drive home his point. "…by any means…"

"Easy, now," the Copy Ninja lightheartedly suggested. "No need to get even more hostile. Plus," for emphasis, he looked around at the crimson-stained wood, "I think you owe it to Tsunami-san to clean up the mess you…" The glare from the other man caused Kakashi to correct the blame. "…we made."

The former Demon of the Hidden Mist growled a noncommittal noise before approaching the slime-ball. "Move aside, Kakashi. I'll finish the job…"

"…Spare me…"

The low, strained and broken voice caused the hulking figure to stop about two meters away, longsword held across his right shoulder. "I beg your pardon?"

"Please…" Gatō wheezed between his swollen lips. "No more…You got…what you wanted…So, please…let me go…"

"Oh?" Zabuza held in his sinister grin. "Once the mighty have fallen, they so desperately try to cling onto what little power they have left." The Kijin then snarled like an animal. "You disgust me, you piece of shit!"

_'Maybe…just, maybe…I shouldn't interrupt…'_ Kakashi intelligently thought as he sort of slinked away from what was about to come to pass.

For some peculiar reason, the former Mist shinobi gave pause for thought and hummed. "I tell you what…" With a single hand, Zabuza hoisted the balding man by the scruff of his tattered blazer coat. "Come with me. I got something for you…"

"I assume things are going to get…a bit messy, aren't they, Zabuza?" the ashen-haired veteran cryptically asked.

"Yes," he answered with a menacing undercurrent mingled into it, "I'm going to make it rain, if you catch my drift."

_'If he were here,'_ Kakashi noted offhandedly, _'Jiraiya-sama would have made a very lewd sex joke, right about now…'_

He felt the urge to utter it in his stead, but it would have killed the atmosphere Zabuza set up…or him, if he let down his guard, which was slim to none.

"While we're at it, I suggest you round up your little pups, Kakashi," Zabuza grated out. "I feel that they need a little lesson to harden them for the death that will follow them until the end of their days."

Kakashi of the Sharingan concealed his wince. _'I know I'm going to regret this later, but it needs to be done…'_ Zabuza did have a point. They were shinobi, despite the fact that they were modeled to be child soldiers who would have to take lives for altruistic purposes benefitting their homeland.

"Well," the older of the two spoke up, feigning a bit of truth, "I was going to do that, anyhow." On the other hand, he did not like the way the other man tried to egg him on to comply with his subtle demanding. A thought then dawned on him just as a cheery glint sparkled from his visible eye. "In fact, I have something better."

Just as the Copy Ninja was about to take his leave, Zabuza spoke up to halt his progress. "Where are you going?"

_'Does it really matter?'_ Kakashi curiously thought. "What say you, Zabuza? Want to make this a public spectacle for a bit of an ironic twist?" His sole eye crinkled in amusement, once more.

The Kijin bellowed an outward hum. "I take back what I said about you tree-huggers, then…"

Insanity must have manifested itself in different ways…and Konoha was not immune to its seductive embrace, either…

XXXXXXXXXX

Two days later, among the cheers and jeers, the greasy merchant had rocks, twigs, and stones thrown his way as he was paraded around the town affixed to a set of wooden stakes, before the vengeful townsfolk stuck his broken body in their unofficial plaza.

Coincidentally enough, it had been close to the very same spot where Gatō had brutally murdered Kaiza to crush the morale of the people who had the nerve to stand against him.

Now, the throng of citizens craved for a kilogram or two of his flesh and blood, with faith and hope restored in a better and brighter future for the Wave Country.

"Hm," Tazuna hummed as he thumbed the handle on an ale jug. He turned to his benefactors who helped him along the way. "It seems…fitting and it feels like it's coming around full circle."

"You can say that," Kakashi detachedly uttered while shrugging without a care to the world. The shift in his posture shook the knapsack of bank rolls and ryō notes dangling from his right shoulder, courtesy of the soon-to-be former owner of the Gatō Shipping Company.

"You rotten bastard!" a shaggy man had yelled from the crowd after chucking a stone in Gatō's direction, praying that it would strike him right in the temple. "I hope ya get what's comin' to ya!"

That single outcry incited a tidal wave of chants and promises to do bodily harm to the now-powerless man who has caused so much grief and despair among their people. Unfortunately for them, the Copy Ninja, who had then ordered his genin to still hang around Tazuna, ran interference from time to time to keep the masses from swarming and tearing apart the mogul…cheery-eyed and all.

Seeing how big the payoff was, who would not be at a time like this?

_'Punish the wicked merchant and grab his assets. Seems like a win-win for today…'_

It was Zabuza who wanted to finish him off, so he had to keep Gatō's life hanging by a mere thread. He let the townsfolk get in their kicks, spits, curses and punches before urging them to move on.

Once the residents had exhausted their fun, Zabuza slowly walked up to the shell of a once-powerful man, who was now as impotent as a fish flopping about on dry land as he limply hung from the wooden cross.

"Look at you now," he growled dangerously close to Gatō's damaged ear. Said merchant looked up to his tormentor with eyes filled with unabashed fear and helplessness. The look displayed all over the wretch clearly showed that he wanted to be put out of his misery.

It was a crying shame that the man could no longer talk, since his jaw had been pretty busted up. He also seemed to have a puffer-fish look going, to boot.

"Kakashi…how about we cut our guest…_loose_?" The smirk behind the newly-wrapped bandages around Zabuza's face was not lost on the Copy Ninja.

"Eh…why not? I think he's suffered quite a bit, if I do say so, myself," the dog-summoning ninja coolly remarked with a shrug of his shoulders. He then lugged his frame in slow, even paces until he stood near the ropes binding Gatō's hands in place. With a swift flick of his free hand, the confines were cut cleanly and fell to the pavement, causing the weakened mogul to collapse in a messy heap to the unforgiving earth.

"Now, do you see, Gatō?" the Demon of the Hidden Mist rhetorically asked. "I'm a man of my word, and I decided to let you go…" Before the now-robbed tyrant heaved a sigh, a fast-approaching gleam entered his skewed periphery. He had little time to scream before the hefty sword belonging to its crazed wielder chopped right through the man's neck in one, fluid motion. While Gatō's severed cranium rolled to the side like a head of lettuce, Zabuza tacked on what he wanted to finish saying. "…to Hell. Put in a word to the Great King Enma for me, will ya?"

Kakashi fiddled through his utility pouch for his favored literature when he noticed the distraught and mortified looks his charges displayed. Sakura, unfortunately, folded over like a sheet of paper and tossed her cookies. It looked like he would have to sit them down and have a chat about what just went down.

_'Oh, dear…This won't be pretty…'_

Oh, how he detested this ninja system for rearing child soldiers from the cradle to the grave…

XXXXXXXXXX

After a long period of silence, and closing the door to the dining room, the Copy Ninja from Konoha showed to his pupils a sincere, empathetic look that easily twinkled through his visible eye. He took his time to evenly scan each of his student's traumatized state when they returned to Tazuna's sea cottage for the last time before heading back to Konoha. Maybe he should have been a bit clearer in his intentions to expose them to the gritty side of the ninja world…

"I can see you have a lot of questions on your minds," he began, bag full of cash now sealed into a storage scroll and in his utility pouch. He absorbed the stillness and considered it hesitation on their part to open up. He chose to kneel in front of them, instead of hunching over. "Well, since you don't want to speak up, then I guess I should tell you what you need to hear."

His face then adopted a haggard look; one befitting a man who has seen and experienced more than he should have in one lifetime. "Oftentimes, in the ninja world, there comes a time when a shinobi has to commit heinous acts in order to keep the balance, as well as keeping the peace. Death is unavoidable in our profession, and it is a shame that the Ninja Academy all but sugarcoated and idealized the world for what it truly is. We tend to look on the brighter side of the leaves soaking up sunlight, instead of hiding away under the comforting shadows…"

"S-so, does that mean we have to…?" Sakura posed a question after calming her frayed nerves.

Kakashi knew where she had led that innocent query. He allowed a slow, solemn nod to confirm her fears. "Yes, you have to eventually taint your soul by taking a life, if you want to survive in this world."

_'If anything, we're not too far removed from the savage beasts that roam these lands…'_ he reflected without voicing his jaded opinion.

Naruto harshly gulped. That notion never settled well with him. He had been at that crucial moment—that very instant where another person's life dangled in his hands by a thin fiber of thread, ready to get cut at a moment's notice. Would he, in due time, have the resolve and courage to…kill another human being without mercy in his soul and regret in his heart?

Sakura, on the other hand, choked on a sob once more. Soil her hands with the taint of her enemies? She took a good look at her pristine digits, marred with a small nick or two from gripping the kunai a little too tightly. They shook anew.

_'No way!'_ Sakura internally shouted. _'I'm…not ready for this…'_

The Uchiha scion merely took it in stride, indifference overshadowing his visage. If it meant one step closer to killing his target, then he would do so.

"Is there really no other way, Sensei?" Naruto delicately asked.

"If there were other ways, Naruto, then, obviously, they didn't pan out so well," Kakashi despondently refuted as he cupped his hands under his chin. "In Konoha, our shinobi are taught to be proud that we are nothing like the other nations abroad. We aren't bloodthirsty; rather, we try to teach our budding ninja from a standpoint that shows that we are human, and it is damn near impossible to silence your emotions. That is what makes you alive. Never lose sight of that, because, if you do, then you will go against everything your forefathers fought for since the beginning of the Warring Clans era." He looked out the window, out into the lifting mist around the harbor, and grunted into a hum.

Naruto was the first to move after his sensei's sudden speech. He broke contact with his imposing frame to look down on the ground. He closed his eyes and balled his fists. "Then I will do my best to change it…" he quietly muttered.

"Hm?" Kakashi and his teammates looked to him like they heard him right. "What'd you say, Naruto?"

Now, the blond looked up into his mentor's exposed orb, steely-blue eyes locked in resolution. "I said I'll do my best to change it! I'll find my own path in this ninja world!"

"Well," the hazel-eyed jōnin began, slightly regretting the notion that he was about to douse his sensei's legacy's flame, "I hate to burst your bubble, Naruto, but we can't go around and change our code willy-nilly. They are in place for a reason. Where would the order be if it didn't exist?"

"What about reforms to make things…a bit more comfortable?" Sakura asked with a twinge of hope lining her speech.

"…" For a brief stint, the gray-haired assassin was quiet, but not on account of a loss for words. He just reflected on the kinds of changes he wanted to see done…with little to no results to show for it.

_'Has the long-standing peace really weakened the hearts of our children?'_ He understood their reluctance, since they never had to go through serious conflict until this mission. Simulations were one thing in the Academy; the real world was a whole new can of worms waiting to be opened.

Hidden from the genin squad, the Copy Ninja pursed his lips. "You'd have to take that up with Hokage-sama once you get a bit of weight to your name. Until then, we can't rock the boat." Feeling that his knees began to tremble for staying in a kneel for quite a while, he got back up to fully stand. "The ninja world is an unforgiving one. Beyond our borders, the common law is eat…or be eaten. Harden your hearts, but don't let it go." With that, he walked away, but paused as he stood in the threshold of the open path leading upstairs after prying open the door. "Make sure you gather your belongings. We head out in the morning."

"What about Zabuza?" Sasuke inquired, breaking his own reflective calm.

"…He and Haku have decided to leave already. They don't owe allegiance to anyone, so they chose to depart of their own free will. He told me to pass what he said to me…onto you…" He then amended, "Well, I rehashed a bit of it, with some of my own words, of course." That eye-smile of his exploded onto his face. "However, these are his own: 'Get stronger and kick ass.'"

He saw the glimmer of faith rekindle in their eyes. _'I guess I got through to them, after all…'_

XXXXXXXXXX

Tazuna and his family stopped at the finished, nameless bridge as Team Seven touched on the ground leading back to Konohagakure.

"Well, I guess this is goodbye for now," Kakashi cheerily supplied as he turned around at a profile.

"We can't thank you all enough for all that you've done!" Tsunami, a dark-haired female around Kakashi's age and Inari's mother, exclaimed out of sheer happiness.

"We are indebted to you, Kakashi-san, for all that you accomplished," Tazuna added, taking off his conical hat as a sign of respect. He had foregone his jug of alcohol and left it at home—another strange occurrence.

"Naruto-nii…" the young boy, Inari, who wore a bucket hat over a mess of mousy-brown hair, started to tear up.

Naruto felt the urge to cry, but when he locked eyes with the little kid, he could have sworn that he saw a ghastly image of Kaiza's two hands clasping his adoptive son's shoulders, with a smile on his face. He violently shook his head to get a grip on his sense of reality. "That reminds me…Before I go, Inari…"

"Huh?" was the only intelligible sound from the boy.

"…make sure to hold onto what you cherish with your two hands and don't ever let go…okay?"

Inari stood stock still. "H-how…?"

Even Tsunami and the old bridge-builder remained speechless, eyes bugging out a considerable amount. How did he know the almost exact words that Kaiza had told his son?

"All right. I'm done, Sensei, so, let's go home!" As exuberant as usual, Naruto revved up in excitement to head back.

"Cool your jets, Naruto," Kakashi eased as he placed a hand on his mop of blond hair. "We'll be back before you know it." A thought crossed his mind. "Actually, you guys go on ahead. I'll catch up. I have something to discuss with our client."

The demon vessel did not second-guess the mandate, so he started a light brisk. "Come on, guys! We're burning daylight!"

"H-Hey, Naruto, you're bad with directions! Wait for us!" Sakura shouted as she started to close the distance.

"Hn," the natural Sharingan-wielder snorted. "For once, I agree with Sakura." That haughty smirk exploded on his face as he made a small sprint to catch up.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

**A/N:** Well, I decided to mix things up a little bit, this time around. From now on, and probably in all my other fics, I'm placing just one solid Author's Note at the bottom of the chapter, so you don't have to worry over reading some jarring text that has me ranting, babbling, and what have you.

At any rate, if any of you are cringing at Team Seven's naïveté, then don't worry. They're still little kids in the greater scheme of things. Even though they are trained since kids to be warriors, Konoha has…kind of sheltered their children from the ills of the ninja world. On the other hand, they will grow out of their innocence soon, but nothing substantial has happened to alter their mindsets…yet. I just want them to learn this lesson right now, since I felt that it was long overdue for their canon counterparts at this point in time to understand that the real world isn't all sunshine and sunflowers.

Next order of business, I apologize on behalf of my readers for not keeping consistent with updates and not giving you something interesting to read on a timely basis. When I mean that RL is a mess, I'm not joking. I won't give you the details regarding my personal life, but I assure you, I wasn't being lazy all the time (well, in just a few cases, but that's beside the point). I have other writing projects—non-fan-fiction-related, mind you—that also deserve every bit of my attention, so, if it feels like I'm neglecting my fan base through here, then send me a PM and whip me back into shape, if need be, but be cordial about it, okay?

As always, I would like to give my commendations to my pre-readers for their genuinely-welcomed critiques: **Paladeus, weixuan18, and Arashi the Solar Phoenix**.

Until next time, keep it classy, and keep it clean. Let me know what you think. Leave me a review, favorite it, put it into your alerts pile, or tell your friends about me. That's how knowledge is spread. Enjoy the rest of your day (or night, depending on your time zone), ladies and gentlemen!

**Kanji/Rōmaji Guide**

火遁 Katon: literally, "Fire Release"

忍術 Ninjutsu: "ninja technique(s)" or "art(s) of the ninja"

神 Kami: roughly translated as "god(s)," "deity(ies)," or "spirit(s)"

浪人 Rōnin: literally, "wandering person(s)"; a samurai who is not tied to a lord or master due to extenuating circumstances, whether it is that he lost favor or privilege with his master, or he becomes master-less upon a feudal lord's death

斬馬刃 Zanbatō: literally, "horse-slaying sword" or "horse-chopping saber"; catch-all term for generally large, wide blades

地蔵菩薩 Jizō Bosatsu: Japanese equivalent to the bodhisattva Ksitigarbha, the Buddhist guardian/patron god of children, travelers, and spirits spending time in the underworld

下忍 Genin: "Lower Ninja"

波の国 Nami no Kuni: "Wave Country"; in English TV, "Land of Waves"

**Jutsu Guide**

雷切 **Raikiri (Lightning Cutter)**: S-rank, offensive short-range ninjutsu; with the ability of raw elemental chakra manipulation, the user concentrates a dense, erratic, blue mass of electricity in the palm of his/her hand; unlike its parent technique, **Chidori (**千鳥 – **One Thousand Birds)**, the Lightning Cutter requires more precise chakra control; just like the Chidori, both jutsu contain the nasty drawbacks of tunnel vision due to the high speed at which the practitioner of this certain-kill technique travels (Narutopedia)

忍犬 **Ninken**: literally, "Ninja Dogs"; Kakashi's personal summoning contract of tracking and pursuit-trained canines with superlative sensing abilities


	3. Ch 2: Catalyst

**_Chapter Two_**_: Catalyst_

Team Seven walked down the dusty path, side by side, taking in the scenic splendor provided by the shade offered by the towering foliage. As per their normal routine, Sakura pestered Sasuke for a date, to which the brooding Uchiha declined. That led Naruto to ask out his rosette-haired crush, to which was met with a vehement response in the negative.

"Come on, Sakura-chan! Please!" the blond boy whined, imploring for at least one shot at happiness.

The green-eyed kunoichi-in-training gave him a look of pure disgust. "There's no way in hell, Naruto!" she screeched, feeling revulsion overload her senses.

The Uchiha scion merely rolled his eyes, already tired of hearing this scenario going around in circles, with no hint of it ending in sight. _'So annoying…'_

"I promise you, Sakura-chan, it'll be fu…fu…a…" Naruto flinched when a tickle hit his nose. He tried to hold it in, but it felt like it burned his throat if he tried to suppress it. So, he did the natural thing with the tingling sensation in his nose…

He sneezed.

"Achoo!"

When he released the buildup of air, an emerald flame erupted out of his throat and escaped his mouth. His nostrils burned like hell when smoke drifted out, all the while coughing and gagging to rid himself of the disgusting odor clogging his sense of smell.

Sakura indignantly sputtered when she witnessed that display, eyes grown to the size of apples as she jumped to the side. "N-Naruto, you idiot! What the hell?" It almost scorched her!

_'Wait a minute…'_ She had to backtrack a bit. _'That fire didn't have any heat to it! Am I sure that I saw what I thought I saw?'_

"…" Sasuke owlishly blinked, face just as calm and cool, but inwardly, he thought differently. _'Huh…that's a pretty decent trick…for a moron…'_

"Ugh…" The blond sniffled. It was strange to him. Normally, he _never_ got sick, if he recalled correctly. He twitched his nose. "That was…weird…" He sharply sniffed again.

"Hey, guys…" The trio of genin turned to see their mentor with a cheery expression on the exposed part of his face as he had caught up. His naked eye crinkled in amusement. "What seems to be the problem, hm?"

"Sensei, Naruto tried to burn me with fire!" she squawked like a parrot.

"What?" the bewhiskered genin stammered. "Did not! I just sneezed, and then, _fwoom_! I felt a burning feeling in my throat!" He waved his hands in a frantic flap.

"I guess what they're trying to say is that Naruto sneezed, and suddenly, he blew out a green blaze like my jutsu," the brunet casually explained, shrugging like he did not care. It still held his interest, and hoped that it did not prove itself a challenge to him.

Their jōnin-sensei's lone eye blinked once. "Huh. Odd, that. You sure you're feeling fine, Naruto?"

The runt of the litter—in Kakashi's point of view—rubbed his temples. "Yeah. Other than a small headache, I feel okay…"

Kakashi hummed. "Well, that's that, I guess." True to his nature, the orange book was back out in his hands. _'Plus, I have to notify Hokage-sama of this incident…'_

"Say, Kakashi-sensei," the cherry blossom of the team chimed in once more, "why did you need to speak with Tazuna-san?"

"Oh, that," the Copy Ninja realized. "I told him I was taking the money from Gatō as…compensation for the mission. The small amount I got was just enough to make up for the difference in the graduated payment."

"Well, why didn't you give the old drunk a cut of the dough, Sensei?" Naruto candidly asked.

"…He owed us," he remarked like he addressed the weather forecast. "It's as simple as that. With this reimbursement in hand, Konoha will make note of the recent developments and look the other way, forgetting that it ever happened, since we solved their problem."

The blond shinobi looked dejected. "Still doesn't seem fair to me, though."

Kakashi sounded hopeful, for once. "Don't worry, Naruto. I'm sure the Wave Country will bounce back and recover after our help."

The youngest of the bunch let loose a heavy sigh, feeling incompetent for not doing much of anything in the mission. He executed that fiasco on the bridge quite poorly, now that he thought more on it. As loath as he was to admit it, personally, his brooding bastard of a teammate's shout for gauging the enemy on the outside fell on deaf ears, and it nearly cost the other boy his life…all due to a lapse in judgment from the blond ninja. _'What was I thinking?'_ He slightly shook his head. _'Of course, I wasn't…'_

Simpleminded, yes, Naruto claimed himself to be, but that often led to others calling him stupid…or a bumbling moron…or an uncouth idiot…or any other apt description along those lines. Nevertheless, that did not mean much to Uzumaki Naruto. He toughed it out through sheer determination, but it went to show that he should start thinking before engaging enemies on the battlefield, rather than coming up with a plan in the heat of the moment.

_'Well, that trick Sasuke and I used to break Kakashi-sensei free from Zabuza's hold in that water-prison thingy was pretty awesome,'_ he mentally amended. Somehow, he doubted that he and the dark-haired boy could ever duplicate such flawless and seamless teamwork again.

After a pregnant pause befell the crowd as they marched back home, and just as he felt the urge to utter a few more words, he heard the sound of a woman crying that came from Sasuke's direction.

Sure enough, when the bewhiskered genin turned his sights on the brooding bastard, he saw the crying image, holding her hands to her face as the tears freely fell through the cracks. The dark tresses that fell to the center of her back reminded him of the sheen found in his teammate's hair, too. What felt off-putting to Naruto was the view of an apron over her dress that had been stained red. _'Wait…is that…blood?'_

Through the whimpers and the pitiful sniffles, the blond barely pinpointed that the ghost of a woman kept murmuring a single word as she hovered over the self-proclaimed avenger. **"Sasuke…"**

A single thought danced around Naruto's head as he bore silent witness to the heartbroken woman, feeling the rolling waves of forlorn regret drift from her depressing aura. _'So weird…'_

XXXXXXXXXX

The rookie genin cell managed to arrive in Konoha without any other roadblocks. Well, save for the cycle of bickering among the three units, with the children's mentor running damage control as the neutral buffer.

After checking in at the gates for clearance, the assembly of four walked toward the prominent rock busts carved into the mountain that loomed over Konohagakure. Under the four, masculine heads that represented power and prestige among their morale as shinobi stood the odd-looking Hokage residence, a sprawling mansion located near the Ninja Academy, where the Fire Shadow in question resided during his reign. During the time of the founding of the Elemental Nations, Senju Hashirama, the founding ninja who had been christened the mantle of the Hokage, enacted its construction, along with his legendary wood-producing powers to facilitate the process.

The unfortunately lucky team continued their way to see the reigning Sandaime Hokage for their mission debriefing, in addition to delivering their report on the outcome. The strangely silent cell stood around the door leading into the summoning chamber, waiting to be called in. The summoning chamber of the Hokage mansion was where Konoha shinobi filed missives and took on the currently available missions for those who wished to participate. The missions in question were ranked based on urgency and how sensitive the information proved to be. On other occasions, various missions that came in had voluntary labels tacked on them, meaning ninja had the option to accept or decline.

Entrenched in their thoughts, the chūnin helper on duty opened the door, disrupting them all together. "Hokage-sama is now available for you to see him," he automatically said. "You may now come in, Team Seven."

The three preteens and one adult breached the threshold of the western-style door and set their sights on their commanding officer, a wizened old man who had a forty-two-year, nonconsecutive tenure as the Third Fire Shadow. His bleached white hair due to his old age contrasted with the dark tone of his wrinkled face. The ceremonial robes of red and white draped over his calm features, conical hat with the kanji for 'fire' emblazoned on the edge perched atop his thinning hairline. The oldest man in the room commanded an unquestionable authority, further exuded by the gleam in his dark irises. With his elbows resting on the arms of the swivel chair, the senior veteran closed his fingers in a steeple-like fashion, blocking his mouth from view.

"Ah, Team Seven," the Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, gruffly intoned, feeling the need to smoke his pipe, "how well did your mission fare?"

"Well," Kakashi decided to act as an interim spokesperson, "for the most part, we succeeded in guarding our client toward his objective. The bridge is now complete."

_'For the most part?'_ Hiruzen pursed his lips. "There's more to this, isn't there?"

The Copy Ninja heard the authoritative tone behind the simple question. _'Time to fess up…'_ Gathering his information and sorting it through his mind, the jōnin carefully worded the rest of the details and skirted around his blond charge. "Well, yes. You see, the mission was mislabeled, for starters."

"How so, Kakashi?" the Sandaime prodded even further, wanting to get to the heart of the matter.

"We ran into a…complication with regard to protecting the client." The ashen-haired assassin rubbed the back of his scalp. "It was later confirmed that Gatō contracted mid- to high-ranking shinobi under his roster. My worst suspicion had come to pass: the Demon Brothers attacked first, meaning that there were stronger ninja waiting in the wings. Despite the mounting obstacles that loomed ahead, our squad gave the unanimous consensus to press onward, wishing to complete the mission."

Hiruzen's eyes perceptibly narrowed, indicating that he felt not too pleased with how foolhardy that rash act would have carried out into the worst case scenario. "So, you recklessly put three lives—four, including the client—in jeopardy, regardless of the shift in parameters?"

_'He's not liking this one bit, at all…'_ Sakura observed, visibly shrinking from their commanding leader's steadily growing presence.

"After initially thinking that a Kiri hunter-ninja killed Momochi Zabuza, a rogue from the Hidden Mist who showed up next, it turned out that the Demon had an accomplice aiding him. The young boy, Haku, put Zabuza into a false death state while we recovered for a week at the client's abode."

"And why, pray tell, did you not request for backup?" Hiruzen sharply inquired, mouth twisting into a sour frown. "You had well within that week to request for assistance."

"It was…a major oversight on my part, mainly due to the fact that I was rendered immobile in that time due to the overuse of my…special eye," he shakily defended. "I apologize, sir."

The Third Fire Shadow outwardly hummed. "So, what became of Gatō?"

Now, the Copy Ninja hid a smirk behind his facial covering. "Oh, he was personally dealt with. He's taking a dirt nap."

"A stand-up comedian, we have here," he sardonically grumbled, anticipating the nonexistent punch line that never came. "And what of Zabuza and his little helper?"

"The shipping magnate terminated his contract with Zabuza and thought to double-cross him during our fight on the then-unfinished bridge, but…" the jōnin of Team Seven carefully measured his words again, "something unexpected happened, which unknowingly forced Gatō's hand. Zabuza and I teamed up to eliminate the bandits and interrogated the greedy merchant. We managed to get compensated for the difference in the heightened level of difficulty in the parameters of the mission, as per standard protocol…with Gatō's money." He flashed the Hokage a look that assured him that the lack of details provided would be elaborated on when there were…fewer ears present.

"That…will be all, Kakashi," the aged leader hoarsely intoned, already feeling another headache coming. He then looked up from his oak desk. "Do any of your genin have anything to say or add?"

Once Sakura and Sasuke supplied their side of the story, throwing out some scathing and berating remarks about the blond shinobi, who looked like he wanted to find somewhere dark to hide, said blue-eyed genin had his turn to speak in his own defense.

"I'd…rather speak with you alone, Hokage-jijii," he quietly murmured, completely out of his normal character. The tightness around his eyes showed how uncomfortable he was around his other two teammates.

Acquiescing to the boy's request, the Sandaime felt the need to remove the…cancerous agents from the room. "Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura…you are hereby dismissed. That will be all for now. Thank you for serving Konoha." The tone the Third Fire Shadow put into his voice brooked no further arguments.

The raven-haired Uchiha shrugged his shoulders and walked out first, followed by a somewhat stunned, cerise-locked kunoichi lingering behind, like a pesky shadow.

Once the door closed behind them, Sarutobi heaved a very long sigh and looked up at his trusted shinobi. "Your team has…an interesting dynamic, Kakashi."

"Yeah," he wistfully remarked, "they do have that…familiar feeling whenever I see them interact."

"So, Naruto-kun," dark eyes rounded on the bewhiskered kid, "what's this about…a green flame, as noted by your teammate, Sakura?"

The unpredictable noisy ninja gulped. "Well, it all started when I tapped into the bastard fox's power on the bridge against Haku, once Sasuke went down. I thought he was dead, so I just…lost it."

_'So, the seal's strength depends on the amount of mental duress Naruto can take until someone pushes his berserk button, in a sense,'_ Hiruzen reflected. _'To a further extent, the angrier the boy gets, the higher the probability becomes of him drawing on the Kyūbi's power.'_ The kid had a bit of a temper problem; on that, the Hokage had absolutely little to no doubt. Then again, he indirectly caused the boy to become what he was today, as with most of the ninja population who chose to remain neutral or the civilian population that ostracized him from engaging in societal practices. Despite the Yondaime Hokage's last wishes prior to his untimely death, they were outright discarded; cast aside and clouded in the haze of pain while coping with the loss of loved ones consumed by the stories-tall fox demon set loose.

Either way, his wandering thoughts began to derail his focus. "Do you remember anything else during that period of time?"

"Well…everything felt…so hazy and dim," Naruto tried to explain to the best of his ability. He could not quite put a finger on it. "I saw red. Lots and lots of red."

The sage-like Hokage distractedly rubbed at the thinning hairs that made up his beard. "Hm…"

"Then," the youngest in the room continued, "when I came to, I saw the same person in the woods that woke me up from a training exercise Kakashi-sensei put me through." He decided to hold his tongue on what happened after that.

"What caused you to scream, then?" Sarutobi kindly asked.

_'Oh, crud…'_ He tried his hardest to remain calm, cool and collected when being probed by his grandfather figure, but slowly, he started to flounder before catching himself. "The strain on my body from the fox caused me to shout beyond my control." Until the blue-eyed trickster got a better understanding of what he witnessed and felt ready to come clean, no one was going to find out.

The boy obviously kept something away from him, but, for now, Hiruzen decided not to press him further under the microscope of constant scrutiny. The commoners of the village already did just that, and then some. "So…about that green flame…"

Naruto's cobalt-blue eyes lit up in realization. "Oh, right! I forgot about that."

"No worries, my boy. Continue."

"Okay, so, after using the power of the Kyūbi, I've had this throbbing headache that comes and goes, and before we all got back, I sneezed. My throat felt so raw after this greenish flame blew out my nose and throat. It was kind of weird. Don't ask me how. I don't even know." For emphasis, Naruto's arms flapped like a bird due to his flustered state.

"…I see." The vaunted 'God of Shinobi' thought long and hard, coming up with possible ways for Naruto to get this new power of his under control.

During the small lull of silence, the dull pulse returned to the blond's head again as an image showed up from out of nowhere and started forming an image right by the seated Fire Shadow. Next to Hiruzen floated an old hag with a look of disappointment on her face, in Naruto's estimation of her mood. There was a rather nasty gash that split open the dark-colored robe draping over her body, which he assumed must have been the killing strike to end her life.

The boy shook away the pain, but the elderly woman remained where she hovered—right over Sarutobi's shoulders. _'So…it's official,'_ he mused in outright defeat. _'I see dead people…'_

"I believe that should be it for today, Naruto-kun," the eldest in the room reasoned, feeling that the boy had enough questions thrown his way in one day. "Rest well, and I'll see you later, okay?"

"That's what you always say, Hokage-jii," Naruto complained. "You're too busy running the village."

"This time, my boy, I promise," Hiruzen sincerely declared with a fuller intonation. "Now, run along. I know you got a lot of energy to burn."

With a beaming grin from ear to ear, Naruto wasted no time at all to fly out the door and away from the stifling atmosphere. _'And then, there were two…'_ His dark-colored eyes refocused on a solitary hazel—the only one left from Team Seven, their jōnin-sensei. "It would appear that the boy has a special ability, but I'm afraid that learning how to control it here is…for lack of a better word, inadequate."

Kakashi did not like where this conversation led. "So, you suggest sending him away? Now, of all times?"

"I don't have any other option, Kakashi," the Sandaime responded in kind. "Spiritual techniques are not part of Konoha's arsenal of mastered techniques. They're not part of our village repertoire."

It was all guesswork, according to the Copy Ninja. "The supernatural, then?"

"My logic does, in fact, lead me to believe that much."

"Well, if you send him away, then I'll be a genin short of a full cell."

Hiruzen's gnarled digits clasped together under his chin again, contemplating his next move. "Continue on like normal, and I'll see if I can find a placeholder for Naruto-kun, for the time being."

"What about the Chūnin Exams, Hokage-sama?" the ashen-haired veteran hazarded.

"What month is it, Kakashi?"

"…April, sir."

"There's plenty of time, young one. Three months, in fact." The Third Fire Shadow displayed one of his kindred smiles. "It'll all depend on your unpredictable ninja that he returns sooner than later. How long he'll be gone, I'm unsure, since it will solely be up to him."

"…Surely, you're going to have an escort for the boy, right?"

A snort escaped the Hokage's weathered lips as he fished around the top drawer for his smoking implement. "What do you take me for, Kakashi? Some old coot who would let all chaos zip through his ninja forces because our most valuable asset leaves on his own, knowing full and well that he might get killed?"

_'Well, there was that incident that involved that slime-ball, Mizuki, who ran off at the mouth, regardless of the decree and blabbed it to Naruto, but…'_ Feeling his bitter retort die before escaping his mouth, the gravity-defying hair fell a bit after Kakashi heard the obvious, chastising sarcasm behind his commanding officer's words. "My…apologies, Hokage-sama. I spoke out of turn." He felt that chiding his superior at that moment would have produced…unbecoming results.

"I know," he brushed off, snickering for good measure. "I merely jest." Then, suddenly, Hiruzen easily slipped back into his professional mode. "Anyway, if I don't find a suitable replacement for Naruto, then I will either shift around the washouts that came close to passing and pick the one with the highest potential to be a genin, or mix around the currently active roster and get the kids to work with other genin, to further promote our teamwork dynamic." He paused for a moment as he took time to light his calabash pipe and puffed a bit of his rich tobacco. "If you see…my son, then tell him I have a request. I need to see him."

The scarecrow ninja could already feel the tension in the room, knowing the history and the estranged relations between father and son. "Yes, sir. I'll find Asuma right away."

"Thank you, Kakashi. You may go." Once the infamously tardy shinobi left his presence, Hiruzen slumped slightly into the groove of his chair, alone in his thoughts, minus the cloaked sentinels that shuffled about in his office. _'So…a flame that doesn't burn, but has the makings for greater power…'_

It was a bold and daring action in one fell swoop to send a demon container to the outskirts of the Fire Country…to the hallowed grounds of the Fire Temple, with his son, Sarutobi Asuma, former member of the Shugonin Jūnishi, escorting the boy due to his knowledge on the lay of the land. _'I hope that our sister branch, the ninja monks, knows more about this strange phenomenon than we do…'_

XXXXXXXXXX

En route to his apartment, Naruto walked in jittery steps, feeling dread line his innards as a large amount of souls mixed, mingled, or floated among the crowd, completely unaware of their presences. A scant few flickered like lanterns that lit up at night and disappeared without a trace. For some of the wandering spirits, the blond could not even look at them without flinching—severed torsos, missing limbs, twisted necks, and bloody messes flooded his vision.

The moans, groans, sobs and wails pouring forth made the blue-eyed genin's ears and head pound with agony. The sensual overload almost caused the boy to shut down, but he felt the urge to run to somewhere familiar and more comforting, wishing for it all to just…go away!

_'I gotta get home!'_ he thought with a growing panic. His strides started to increase as some of the corporeal onlookers looked at him rather oddly. _'Why me?'_ Soon, his longer paces developed into a mad dash to where he considered home. _'How come I have to see dead people?'_

Trying to maintain focus on the matter, he then took his time to think more on the strange happenings around him.

_'This all didn't start until I used that damn fox's power!'_ Could that have been the issue? Even though Naruto never personally spoke with the Kyūbi, it seemed that now was a good time to demand answers from the reviled tailed-beast of legend. However, there stood one obstacle…

_'How the hell do I talk to it, anyway?'_ He decided to work more on that later as his humble abode came into view. As soon as he entered the one-bedroom unit, a harmonious peace washed over his exhausted form, relishing in the sanctity provided by his home.

_'Wait…no sounds on the outside…no spirits floating around…'_ Naruto sighed in comfort as he slumped along the door leading to the outside. _'What a relief…'_

Much to his surprise, the bewhiskered ninja heard humming, and the soothing sound made him lose focus on reality for a few seconds or so. _'Wait…I feel funny…and where's that hum coming from?'_

Even when seated, a sense of vertigo overcame him when a golden-yellow image flickered into his line of sight. The figure pranced around his little kitchen area, in the shape of a woman over the stove, appearing to be cooking something. The daydream felt realistic due to the smells wafting from the electric stove.

The humming, Naruto realized, came from the golden-toned figure in his eyesight. A hazy, but sketchy, outline defined her features. The long hair and shapely figure stood out the most in trying to pinpoint it to a near science. The woman's body tensed for a moment and turned to the side at a profile, exposing her really, _really_ large belly.

_'Whoa! Did she eat a watermelon whole?'_ he childishly mused, since no one taught him anything about the…origins of baby-making and procreation.

**"Shh,"** the womanly entity hushed in small whispers. **"It's okay, Naruto. Mama's fixing us something special…salt ramen!"** The bulge in her stomach restlessly bubbled around. **"My, my, you're a feisty one, dattebane!"** The unknown female caressed and cooed around her stomach, the cooking meal on the stove somewhat forgotten.

The blond boy jumped from his spot on the floor, thunderstruck, and felt a rising warmth in the pit of his stomach. The heat, however, was accompanied by a cold anxiety that crept along his nerves. _'I had…a mother? Is…was that…me?'_ He crept closer to the intimate scene, numb to the world once more. _'Why didn't anyone tell me anything about my parents?'_

Then again, how come he never asked around, despite the animosity thrown toward him on a daily basis for all of his twelve years of existence? For a boy who had the perseverance of a stone mountain, his foundation started to crumble right then and there.

From the constant disappointment in how his fellow men and women treated him, Naruto hid away and locked all that pain inside him, but now, those feelings of insecurity began to rear their ugly heads and rise to the forefront of his mind. He was always labeled as 'that kid,' 'that child,' 'that Naruto,' or 'that brat.'

The looks, once the blue-eyed boy carefully recalled, and the glares of scorn and hatred…hid away something else, just like his fragile smiles, his false acts of bravado to exude unbreakable confidence, and his penchant for pulling pranks.

His spiraling thoughts broke away like shattered glass when a soft hand touched his shoulder, causing him to squawk and almost jump out of his skin on his way back to reality.

Slowly, with trepidation coating the pits of his stomach, Naruto turned around to find…the golden-tinted woman, who tilted her head to the side, almost as if she gauged his reactions. Like sprinkling dust in the wind, the amber aura dissolved in the air, leaving behind an afterimage in the likeness of a vibrant, wine-red-haired woman wearing a yellow shirt underneath a dark-colored dress that extended all the way down to her ankles. Her big belly was nowhere to be seen, oddly enough.

**"Ara?"** The older woman blinked. **"Naruto, don't you recognize your own mother when you see her?"** No response. She then pouted, feigning crying. **"I'm hurt!"**

Words never spoken did not register on the mind of the young jinchūriki. He opened his mouth, but nothing ever came. He was too shell-shocked by this turn of events. That and, standing before him, was a spiritual image of his presumably deceased mother. His mind blanked out and he ran under the covers of his bed, wishing to any deity above that this was some sick, twisted, and cruel joke. "G-Go away!" Naruto sputtered, shivering under his thin sheets. "I don't know who you are, so, please…just g-go away…and leave me alone!"

A look of remorse crossed the spirit's face for a scant amount of time before her mouth formed into a thin line…and then, into a feral grin. She stomped over to the bed a meter or so from where she stood and did the one thing that ran through her mind…

She poked her son's head, even with the covers draped over his frame, with constant prodding. How she managed to do that and not pass through him was a mystery even beyond her understanding. **"I can keep this up all day, Naruto, so you better get that from over your head, right now!"** she chirped.

"No!" Naruto squeaked. "Please, leave me alone, I said!"

**"I'm going to keep poking you until I see that cute, little face of yours, mister!"** She gave the spiky-haired blond a knowing smirk, and even though he did not see it, he sensed the mirth rolling off in waves from the woman with an uncouth style of speech.

Not really considering the fact that an intangible ghost had the capability of actually _touching_ human flesh, the bewhiskered genin threw off the blanket, mouth etched into a frown after relenting. He looked up at the spectral entity that appeared to be tapping a shoe against his hardwood floor. "What do you want?" he groused. "I've already had a crummy day. And who the hell are you? How do you know my name?"

**"So…the old man didn't tell you a thing about me, did he?"** she asked with concern lining her tone. She averted her gaze from her son to the floor. **"You really don't know a thing about your mother—me—, Kushina?"**

Tactless as ever…just like her flesh and blood that breathed before her.

"…Kaa-chan?" The very name that flew from his tongue felt foreign, and yet, oddly natural, almost as if he yearned to say it. He soon realized that he started to open up to this strange woman. "I was only told that I was an orphan used to house the demon that attacked the village."

The translucent figure, now known as Uzumaki Kushina, Naruto's birthmother, huffed, cheeks puffing out in a comical fashion. **"And this is the thanks for me housing _their_ bijū? To be ignored and brushed under the carpet like a speck of dirt? The nerve of them!"**

"Wait…" The blond caught something…off…about this entire situation. "Their bijū…?"

**_'It looks like they really kept him dumb, ignorant and stupid for all this time,'_ **she sourly reflected. **"Yes. I was the Kyūbi's _previous_ host for Konoha,"** the woman pointedly uttered.

"But…why are you telling me this? How come you're here, with me?" Naruto pleaded, trying to make some sense to all this madness. "And…why the hell did you name me after a ramen topping?" That question came out as a means of grabbing at straws, wondering about the answers therein.

The redhead let loose a heavy sigh. **"Even I don't have all the answers to our problems, Naruto,"** she evenly replied, before a joking smile graced her features, **"except for your name. That came from a book written by some lecher, and I thought it was a wonderful name."** Suddenly, another thought crossed her mind as she owlishly blinked. **"Hey, where's that old pervert, anyway? He was your de facto godfather, for gods' sake!"**

For some reason, the boy could smell the scent of his mother, almost as if she were real to him. To test out the theory, he reached out to a curious Kushina and touched her arm, completely oblivious to the world around him, in addition to the jumble of words his mother spoke. "I can touch you, but you're a ghost…" He squeezed her limb. "You feel warm, too."

**"…"** A small idea sprouted in the previous host's head, but for now, it was all guesswork, at best. She wondered more to herself on how come she appeared outside the seal, even though she did not feel any chakra in her essence. **"There's something greater going on, and I'll try to get to the bottom of it."** A longing gaze emanated from the departed soul's soft visage. **"You sure look like your father, Naruto, and you don't know how long I've waited to see you, even after I was taken away from you on the very night you came to this world."**

"Wait…" The shortest of Team Seven felt a cold dread rising from the depths of his soul, "…my father?"

Kushina snorted. **"To think that I fell in love with someone who I had written off as a flake while growing up…"** Without warning, the long-haired apparition guffawed, holding her right hand to her forehead.

Naruto's impatience got the better of him. "Kaa-chan…what do you know about Tō-chan?"

**"Well, you have his hair and eyes, so why don't you tell me?"** his mother smoothly countered. **"The answers you seek aren't always laid out for you. Sometimes, you gotta dig deeper…underneath the underneath…"**

That struck a resonating chord, as noted by the gleam in Naruto's sky-blue eyes, but then, the sparkle turned to confusion. "I'm drawing a blank."

**"…I guess that it'd be cruel of me to keep dangling it over your head, so I'll go ahead and tell you, anyway, to save you the trouble,"** the late kunoichi bluntly intoned, not really registering the indignant mutterings of the boy who sat on his bed. **"Your father…was the Yondaime Hokage, Namikaze Minato, and the one you aspired to surpass."**

For the countless time that day, Uzumaki Naruto, the fabled 'Mouth that Roared,' remained silent, stunned beyond what words could convey and unfeeling to the proverbial exploding tag that detonated around his life. The blond ninja-in-training slumped deeper into his bed, eyes glistening with lachrymal fluid that threatened to fall.

He barely took note of Kushina's warm limbs embracing him in a pining manner, wishing that she could help ease the burden brought upon by the truth denied to him from the very beginning. Strong in mind, the Red-Hot Bloody Habanero closed her eyes as her head rested on her son's mop of sun-kissed locks.

**_'But, I'm here, now, my son,'_ **she mentally affirmed with a resounding determination, hugging him close to her body on the small bed, **_'and I will never leave you again…'_**

XXXXXXXXXX

Loose dust blew across the barren side-road as Zabuza and Haku walked in silence. Their light footfalls, on the other hand, ground against the shifting grains, disturbing the peace and quiet in the countryside.

The Demon of the Hidden Mist felt the need to scout and investigate the leads that the slime-ball, Gatō, dropped as hints, and so, he followed through on the now-headless wimp's name-listing. Unfortunately, after a few more beheadings at his leisure, the duo came up empty on anything substantial. Now, the two skimmed the outskirts of the Water Country, in search of a purpose.

However, for some time, the short-haired, brunet swordsman had sensed…moving shadows that watched their every move for a while. He kept his demeanor cool and calculating as he ran through the potential enemies that tailed them. _'…About six?'_ he conjectured. _ ' No…one's a decoy to throw me off.'_ His eyes sharply shrunk to slits. _'These guys must be the real deal, then. They don't waste movements.'_

He decided to initiate first contact by pausing, to which Haku mimicked. "You know," Zabuza grated out, suppressing his resigned tone as his right arm reached for the hilt of his famed blade, "I don't take kindly to little gnats that pester me and keep following me, so why don't you show your faces?"

True to form, the many presences convened around him in a loose circle, all five of them cloaked in ebony mantles with plain, yet intricate, nō-style masks. Each porcelain facial covering had a special design painted on it, from tribal-style, licking flames, to what resembled a soothing stream running through, or to a delicate zephyr blowing across. The only distinction that gave them away were the four squiggly lines around the forehead region.

_'As I thought,'_ the unhinged nuke-nin recognized, _'the tracking ninja squad that eliminates runaways.'_

The spokesman for the group—who had the commanding aura of a squad leader—walked up like he meant business. "Momochi Zabuza," he scruffily stated, "in direct violation of the crimes you have committed, we have been assigned to…eliminate you."

"In addition," the ninja who donned a wind-themed mask to his left tacked on, taking a step forward to match his leader's, "we will also confiscate what rightfully belongs to Kirigakure—your Kubikiribōchō."

"So," the Kijin growled out, "you've come to collect, huh?" Taking a measured stance, his dominant hand reached behind him, drawing the behemoth zanbatō from its harness strap. He kept vigilant eyes on the wary group sent out to get him. "On whose orders?"

"We don't owe you any explanations to a traitor," the assigned hanchō retorted in a clipped manner. The swirling current dashed on his mask appeared to have come to life when his face darkened. "Now, hand over your blade, or we will guarantee swift justice upon your head." The mountain-sized threat was evident behind the young man's professional demeanor. "You don't have any other options."

The nameless ninja's eyes narrowed. _'We must not let that auburn-haired harpy's goons make contact to enlist this monster,'_ he considered, swallowing a bit of his saliva, _'by any means…'_

The eyebrow-less wonder, as what that blond-haired brat dubbed him before leaving, looked amused, not really feeling outnumbered or threatened. "By all means, you can have it," he muttered before plunging his large sword into the chest of one of the silent ninja to his immediate right. With one twist and a slight jerk upward after that, the man, whose life had already ended without a single scream for mercy, split in twain from the waist, up, blood gushing like a fountain, "over my dead body…"

The chief hunter-ninja murderously glared at the man who just took out one of his highly trained underlings from behind the hardened porcelain. _'This man shows absolutely no fear, even if he seems to be outmatched.'_ Clenching his fist, he unsheathed his tantō and pointed at the deranged ninja who needed to be put down like a diseased mutt. "Hurry up and kill him!" he shouted.

With orders in place, one ninja on Zabuza's two o'clock position charged at him when another managed to find his way into their target's blind spot.

Feeling confident in a clear shot, the two seekers fell into a pincer attack to disembowel the Kijin, but the plan failed…due to…

_'A mirror made out of ice?'_ the shinobi in the blind spot hastily thought, only to get checked in the face by a foot from a young boy who seemed to have melted from said reflective surface. He did not feel the pain until a few seconds afterward as he skidded back in the dirt. _'So, Zabuza's little helper is a bloodline wielder from that Yuki clan?'_ He menacingly snarled. _'I thought they were wiped out!'_

"Good job, Haku. You've done well," the Demon of the Hidden Mist dully praised, "but I got it from here…" With a will of thought, the famed Kirigakure no Jutsu bubbled and frothed from his frame, casting the entire area into a very hazy fog.

The last of the Yuki clan had a doe-eyed look etched onto his face, feeling his heart break again. "What?" he softly asked, his voice wavering and seemed to echo in the miasma.

"Watch out for his silent homicide technique!" the head of the hunter-nin corps exclaimed over the conditions of zero-visibility. _'I think it's time I make my move while my men soften him up. He won't know what's coming to him…'_

"I want you to get out of here," Zabuza lowly remarked as he quietly found his way over to the boy who he wanted to call son, "and take this with you, too, Haku. I won't be needing it." He all but shoved the titanic Decapitating Carving Knife into the long-haired brunet's feeble grip. "Seal it in your storage scroll, and get your ass out of here…as fast you as you can."

"But…Zabuza-san, I—!"

Feeling a few of his Mizu Bunshin pop, the Kijin cut him off with slit eyes. "I don't want these meatheads soiling _my_ tools."

The younger of the two felt a rising warmth from his core, actually feeling appreciated, but a bit heartbroken that his service with the man who gave him a reason to exist had unofficially come to an end today.

"Now, go. You have more years ahead of you, and you're not dying with me today. Those are your orders." The A-ranked rogue ninja, Momochi Zabuza, the heartless monster born in a human's flesh, had, in fact, cared for his weapons, and he felt that the boy—his son in all but blood—would be in better hands, elsewhere. _'I think I now know who these hunters belong to in their allegiance…'_ he dourly reflected. _'_That _bastard's insurgent group…'_

Once he felt his boy's petering chakra, all eyes were back on him as they converged on his position. "Looks like I get to go all out." He allowed his words, along with his murderous intent, to leak out and reverberate in the mist. The Kijin of the Mist's Seven Shinobi Swordsman brandished a few kunai from his brace, even though he felt sort of exposed and naked for not having the comforting grip of his legendary sword. "Now, who wants to meet their maker?"

XXXXXXXXXX

A green blur of a human being soared over the canopy, followed by a quartet of masked ninja at his beck and call.

The member of the dashing ninja was a middle-aged man with gelled, blue hair and an eye patch over his right eye, which clearly hid something from view. His special earrings that dangled from his ears jingled as the evening sunlight glinted on his hitai-ate, which displayed a set of four, squiggly lines, as well.

The man's frenetic gaze through the treetops never ceased while his verdant robes angrily fluttered in the wind brushing against him.

"Ao-sama," one of the masked ninja called from behind the gentleman up front, "do you have a visual?"

"Not yet," the man in charge of the ANBU Hunter Squad, Ao, gruffly answered, keeping his cool despite the circumstances. _'Yagura…what the hell did you do to foil Mei-sama's plans?'_

Regardless of his violent upbringing in a patriarchic society under the Yondaime Mizukage's banner, Ao felt the need to end the regime of the Bloody Mist, and for that reason, Terumi Mei, the incumbent endorsed to become the next Water Shadow, had assigned him to the task of enlisting help from the current wielders of their special weapons to fight in the cause of putting a stop to the infighting. Unfortunately, for them, countermeasures were enacted before he had a chance to round up his crew to track down Momochi Zabuza, who was speculated to have been near Mizu no Kuni for some time, now. He prayed to the gods that they got to him first, instead of the Sanbi container's group of mindless drones.

Channeling some chakra into his conquest trophy, half of his vision flooded into a panoramic view of black, white, and varying tints of blue and gray. A few meters to the northeast, something caught his attention as disappointment filled his veins. With index and middle fingers pressed together, the hardboiled Ao signaled his crew to the area in question.

As soon as they landed, a somber atmosphere clouded around them.

Around the ring of five, dead shinobi, lay the kneeling body of Momochi Zabuza, eyes half-lidded with all sorts of weapons piercing through his frame. The only thing keeping up his bulky frame was a type of spear that dug into the earth around him.

"By the gods," one of Ao's hunter-ninja uttered, seeing the bloody scene before them, "we were too late…"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

**A/N:** And…another one bites the dust! Stick a fork in it. It's done. Compared to the standard I've currently held for the past three months for The Fox Druid, I…kind of fell short in word count, but I'm trying to keep this story concise and true to form.

At any rate, some notes of acknowledgement are in order to the usual suspects that are my go-to pre-readers for this installment: **EliadS, weixuan18, **and **Arashi the Solar Phoenix**.

Now, I'm guessing that you have already seen the change I've made to the title of this fic. Well, I did it for the obvious reason of keeping things clustered, and this merely helps me out with keeping matters sorted on my end. Henceforth, expect the next two parts of this series to be labeled as such, divided into three books:

_Forces of Nature Chronicles, Book II: Rolling Thunder _and_ Book III: Raging Hurricane_

Other than that, there really isn't much to note, for the moment, and any questions that arise from this chapter will be answered in future updates. Trust me. You will see the links fall into place. Just be patient as I spoon-feed you samples of this new power source.

Well, I could throw in a few questions that may possibly show up.

_Q: Will Naruto be overpowered?_

A: As I've stated before, and I'll state it again, Naruto, in the stories that I write, will be **_balanced_**. I don't write super Naruto fics, and if you came for that, then I'm sorry to disappoint. Move along elsewhere.

_Q: What's the link between seeing ghosts and this fire idea that's lurking about, but not really stated outright?_

A: …You'll have to find out in future updates. I'm keeping tight-lipped about it.

_Q: Pairings, if any?_

A: …Kind of on the fence regarding that, since this seems mostly plot-driven. Romance isn't an aspect for this series; it's listed as Supernatural and Adventure, but expect dabbles of other facets in the future. But, I will set the record straight – NO HAREM for this story! Got that?

_Next time, **Chapter Three**: Spirit of Fire, when Naruto travels to the Fire Temple to harness this new ability of his._

Until next time, enjoy your day (or night, depending on your time zone), ladies and gentlemen, and show me some love with a review, while you're down this far on the page. =)

Later!

**Kanji/Rōmaji Guide**

守護忍十二士 **Shugonin Jūnishi**: Twelve Gentlemen Guardian Ninja

抜け忍 **Nuke-nin**: runaway shinobi, rogue ninja, missing ninja, escaped ninja (interchangeable terms); ninja who left their village without the intention of returning, often because they have committed criminal acts or to pursue other personal gains, and the ninja village that they are from will often try to track them down and eliminate them

班長 **Hanchō**: literally, 'squad leader,' or 'honcho'

短刀 **Tantō**: literally, 'short sword,' 'dagger,' or 'dirk'

水の国 **Mizu no Kuni**: Water Country; in English TV, "Land of Water"

三尾 **Sanbi**: Three-Tails

**Jutsu Guide**

霧隠れの術**Kirigakure no Jutsu (Hidden Mist Technique)**: D-rank supplementary ninjutsu; this displacement technique is a specialty of the Ninja from Kirigakure, where one causes a mist to spring forth by lifting up some water, then goes in and out of sight at will from within the pearly-white realm. The mist's thickness is controlled by the amount of chakra kneaded into it (Narutopedia).


	4. Ch 3: Spirit of Fire

_**Chapter Three**__: Spirit of Fire_

Still reeling from a pounding headache, Naruto's crystal-blue eyes fluttered open when the sunlight from the new day poured warmth over his face. The bewhiskered genin stirred from his slumber, never realizing that he fell fast asleep from the mental exhaustion brought upon by the new information bestowed to him last night.

He held his head in his hands, attempting to make some sense of it all.

The young kid had a mother…and a father who loved him—powerful shinobi, at that, in their lifetimes, hidden in plain sight without him being any wiser to piecing things together. One of them, long since shuffled off the mortal coil, cradled him as he drifted off to the sandman's embrace.

The preteen felt like an idiot; the clues and breadcrumbs were right there, all along, with regard to his father. Most notably, the blond hair and blue eyes shared between them definitely called that matter into question, now that the boy had more time for introspection. Moreover, why did no one ever mention anything about a previous host of the monster fox? How come no one said a thing about his mother?

As his vagrant thoughts drifted to that particular topic, Naruto still wondered as to how come a spirit was able to touch a living soul. Said ghost behind him kept him supported, her ethereal arms still tightly wrapped around him. "Mom…"

"**Morning, sweetie!"** she boisterously shouted, almost to the point of making him deaf with her nonsense.

Naruto groaned, rubbing his right ear in the process. "…You were with me the whole night?" he all but rasped out.

Kushina beamed like she hit the lottery. **"I told you I wasn't going away any time soon, Naruto."**

"That's fine and all," he began, clearing his throat, "but wouldn't it be…you know…kind of odd that I'm talking to myself, since no one sees you and all that?" He still was not used to this, as evidenced by the look of uncertainty that danced across his childish features. "They'd probably check me into the psych ward at the hospital…quick, fast and in a hurry."

His mother placed a finger to her chin in thought, allowing her child to squirm into a more comfortable position on the bed. **"…I don't know,"** she owlishly blinked, **"but we'll burn that bridge when we cross it!"**

His erratic, shifting thoughts screeched to a grinding halt when a few raps on his apartment door alerted him that he had company. Stifling a yawn, the bewhiskered genin shuffled off his bed, popping a few bones in his back to relieve a bit of tension, and slowly ambled to the entrance. Without warning, as he touched the doorknob, a tickle hit his nose, prompting him to sneeze out a green flame again. He coughed and gagged on the gas that followed, almost like he inhaled tobacco for the first time.

Not like he tried it, or anything, but he heard horror stories about first-time smokers.

His spiritual birthmother hummed from behind him, still resting on his bed. **"…You should get that checked out."**

"Ugh…" His shoulders and face drooped, not really in a joking mood.

"Are you okay in there, Naruto?" the guest questioned through the threshold. Due to the nature of the hoarse style of speech, it was obviously an old man, which meant only one person could fit that bill.

Surprised to have held to his word, the blue-eyed ninja opened the door to see the imposing figure of the Sandaime Hokage, hands clasped behind his back, as per his standard posture while standing. "Hello, my boy," he uttered with sincere kindness, like a grandparent to his grandchild in all but blood.

Naruto's eyes quickly cut over to his mom, who now glared daggers and frothed at the mouth at the very sight of the decrepit geezer, and turned them back to the guest of his quaint abode, set up with reliable amenities.

He heard his village's leader—hopefully, that job would be his in the future—clear out some phlegm from his nasal airways. "Mind if I come in, Naruto?" he prompted.

"Oh, sorry, Jijii," he apologized, allowing a wide berth for his grandfather-like figure to enter. "I…was kind of distracted."

"No need to say sorry on my behalf," he tenderly allayed as he took a seat by a seemingly frail chair at the kitchen table. "I was just stopping by, as promised."

"**You ungrateful, old man, how dare you get all chummy after what you did!"** Naruto heard his mother shout, drowning out his own thoughts.

"Say, Hokage-jii…"

"Hm?"

"…What do you know about my parents?"

"…" With his mouth hardening into a thin line, Hiruzen decided to skirt about the issue with carefully measured words. "At times, my boy, there comes a high price with information; something most people aren't willing to afford."

The Red-Hot Bloody Habanero gnashed together her teeth. **"You bastard! How can you live with yourself by spouting such…drivel?"** Soon after, a flood tide of expletives bombarded her son's hearing to the point of him almost letting loose a violent outburst of frustration.

"So," the blond tactlessly supplied, "you do know about Uzumaki Kushina, then." He phrased it to sound like a question, even though it lacked the tone. "Redhead? Loudmouth? Does that ring any bells to you, Old Man?"

"…" Again, Naruto was met with silence from the vaunted Professor. _'How did he discover this?'_

"And if there were only three ninja in that same clearing the night I had that bastard fox sealed inside of me," the blue-eyed genin continued, trying to make some sense of his predicament through the rushing tidal wave of information Kushina kept spouting, "then why the _hell_ did you blab about my container status and put up that stupid law?"

"I—" Apparently, the boy was on a roll, since the Hokage could not get in a word, edgewise.

"Why didn't you swear those ninja to keep it a secret?" By now, the young child's voice started to waver and crack, his face assuming the look of a thermometer steadily increasing due to the rising heat in the atmosphere. "I could've had a _better_ childhood! A chance for a _better_ life! And yet you wanted to let the chips fall in place, hoping that things would improve, but they didn't! They just!" he punctuated. "Got! Worse!"

The Sarutobi clan head felt a bit surprised—and rather unnerved—that Naruto now knew, even though his stoic façade maintained neutrality, despite the warring emotions waging within him. "On the contrary, Naruto," he countered as he prepared his defense, "Danzō, my political rival, somehow caught wind of the sealing, in spite of my best efforts to keep it a well-guarded secret, and leaked it out as public knowledge. That wasn't my doing."

Celeste-blue eyes steadily grew colder as he remained standing. "Well, what did you do for damage control, huh?" he bellowed. "Enact a decree that almost everyone and their mother broke in the village, indirectly or not?"

The conical hat perched atop the Fire Shadow's head sunk a bit lower, swallowing the bitter pill that he was just as guilty for leaving matters to go idle. "I realize now that I have failed you—no, you and your family, I should say." Then again, he did let the boy get away with a lot of stuff, even though it nagged at the patience of his citizens.

"Jijii," Naruto's voice grew hoarse and strained, "I looked up to you, and you hold back something important to me…for what? To protect me? I'm not some kid, anymore, Gramps! I don't need to have my hand held!"

"You still are!" the aged veteran roared, his nerves frayed and shorted out. "You're twelve, for gods' sake! Grow up!" Gnarled digits slammed down hard on the wood, causing the younger of the two to balk back and visibly flinch at that. He never was aware of the fact that even the Hokage had a breaking point.

"**You damn monkey, no one shouts at my son and gets away with it!"** Kushina hotly contested from her position on the bed, feeling somewhat helpless to do anything…again. **"Biwako-baasan would be rolling in her grave if she saw you bullying children! She would be ashamed at how far you fell!"**

Hiruzen's right hand got propped up by the table as he started massaging his forehead and temple. "I'm sorry for snapping," he wearily intoned, "but you must know that, as Hokage, there comes a great risk to manage the status quo." He saw the questioning look his proxy grandson sent his way. "I mean, the way things are," he clarified. "There were some instances where…I was forced to turn the other cheek and look the other way…" The sagacious Sandaime Hokage let loose a tired sigh. "I'm old, my boy. I was reluctant to take back the mantle, since someone had to not only do it, but to also handle day-to-day affairs." His dark eyes shifted away from indifferent, sapphire ones. It certainly did not feel the same, now that the shoe was on the other foot. "I hope that, one day, you can forgive me for what I've done. The gods know I'll be paying for my sins in the next life."

'_I feel that Biwako-chan would be livid by how I ran things, if she were still here with me.'_

It still did not settle well with the jinchūriki, however. Still exhausted from the ordeals last night that turned his world upside-down, he felt numb and detached, even though he tried to come to grips with it. "…Give me some time, old man," the orange-clad shinobi murmured after an uncharacteristic silence. "It's a lot to take in." He glanced up at the ceiling of his flat. _'Not like Kaa-chan made it any better…'_ His languid gaze mutely turned to see that his mother looked like a steamed tomato…or a chili pepper, ready to waylay into the wizened Fire Shadow if she were alive and whole again. _'I guess I now know where I got my temper…'_ He sat down on the couch and sighed as his body weight made a groove in the cushion.

"At any rate, Naruto," the Sarutobi clan head chimed in, "I wasn't here to talk to you about your heritage and inheritance. Rather, I came to tell you, personally, that I have a job for you."

The blond-haired kid's ears perked up a bit. "A job? You mean…a mission?"

"Oh, something like that," he responded with a tantalizing undertone. "Now," he quickly added, cutting off the exuberant, spunky boy's whoop, "before you get all riled up and ready to go, I want you to know that you have the option to take it, or turn it down. It's all up to you to choose."

If it entailed mission pay, then he was fair game. "I don't care what it's about, but I'll gladly take it!"

"All right, my boy, consider it done. For the next three months, you are to train at the Fire Temple, located in the heart of the Fire Country, in order to get a better sense of what you are currently experiencing. From a brief understanding, I feel that your…new power needs a fresh set of eyes…and a keener perspective."

The ramen-loving ninja's eyes brightened and shone with the intensity of an afternoon sky devoid of clouds. "…Are you okay with sending just me, Jijii?"

"Oh, I have someone who can guide you there and stay with you for the time being. He knows the lay of the land better than any ninja under my roster."

"Who?" Naruto hastily demanded.

The God of Shinobi wagged his finger as if chiding a child—which he was. "You'll find out at the mission briefing later on today, my boy."

The scion of the Yellow Flash pouted. "Aw…No fair, Jijii!"

Hiruzen simply laughed mirthfully.

"Wait…" Naruto paused. "If you're here, then what about all that paperwork that you got back in your office?"

Shifty, dark eyes roamed around the apartment, almost as if he conspired to pull off a trick of his own. "…I got it covered."

XXXXXXXXXX

The shadow clone left behind could do nothing but grumble about his plight. Growing tired of the tedium that paperwork held over it, the Sarutobi duplicate summoned a copy of its own, feeling itself to be in a productive, procrastinating mood. Said doppelganger slowly blinked, wondering about its purpose.

It did not have to wait long, however. "I'm tired of this shit," the first replica bit out. "You do the rest."

"But…" the second clone stammered out, "this was _your_ job."

"I know," the initial duplicate dully remarked. "I'm going to get to the backlogged medical leaves. Anything to break up the monotony."

XXXXXXXXXX

After his brief trip to the Hokage Tower, the blond shinobi-in-training checked his supplies right before heading out for good. Before he left, the old man recommended that he pack enough to hold him over for a several-month stay.

"**Don't forget to pack enough clean underwear!"** he heard his hazy spirit for a mother delightfully chime from the corner of his apartment.

His cheeks flushed in embarrassment as he distractedly turned away from the mission briefing scroll he received at the Hokage Tower. "Mom!"

She childishly giggled at her son's expense.

XXXXXXXXXX

Naruto jogged at a steady pace to the West Gate, one of the four checkpoints around Konoha proper that provided the least amount of traffic during the daytime hours. As he stared at an odd angle skyward, the orange-clad kid realized that he had a few minutes to spare. _'It's almost close to two in the afternoon…'_

The sound of a rustling rucksack caused the bewhiskered genin to look down at the only person standing near the exit. The buff man had a grisly beard that framed his face, and per his modus operandi, he had a lit cigarette dangling from his mouth. "Eh? Asuma-sensei!"

Brown eyes lit up in realization as the seasoned jōnin turned at a profile. "Oh, hey, Naruto!" he exclaimed. "Ready to go, I take it?"

"…You're my guardian?" the younger of the two confusedly asked.

"…Didn't you read the entire mission scroll?" Asuma countered.

Damn his mom for distracting him. "…I didn't have time. I got kind of sidetracked."

"Well, we got a few minutes, so go ahead and skim the mission outline before we head off." The chain-smoking shinobi whipped off his backpack and sat down by the guard duty desk.

Doing as he was instructed to do, cobalt eyes critically scanned the parchment from his knapsack and perused its contents.

He felt a lingering presence over his shoulder, urging him to not roll his eyes.

Kushina hummed, intentionally annoying her son. **"It's an extended C-rank training mission, with matching pay."** She pursed her lips. **"Pretty nice…"**

"Do you mind, Mom?" he harshly whispered under his breath.

"**Hey, don't mind me!"** she defended, holding up her hands like she prepared to stop something. **"I'm just here, remember?"**

Grumbling in a low tone, Naruto turned to his quasi-bodyguard for the duration of the assignment. "Say, Asuma-sensei…"

"Yes?" The dark-toned ex-Guardian Ninja responded, eyebrows lifting up a marginal amount from his spot, map securely grasped in his hands.

"Any reason why this is marked as a C-rank? It's just training."

The brown-eyed ninja rubbed a finger under his nose. "Anything that entails going beyond Konoha's borders, but within the Land of Fire's jurisdiction, merits a minimum rank of C, alongside escort missions between territories. For example, your botched mission to Wave, while marked as C, sharply shifted into parameters along the lines of a B-ranked mission."

The genin before him gaped like a fish. "You found out about that?"

The elite ninja snorted and shrugged. "Word gets around fast if the missions aren't classified or if they don't breach security issues. Besides," he flippantly added, "we always cross-check and examine our cells from time to time among my fellow peers."

"**A dick-measuring contest for bragging rights, basically,"** Kushina glibly retorted, blowing a loose strand of her red hair from her face. **"Jōnin teachers do that all the time."**

Asuma's mouth then edged into a thin line, unaware of the blond's stink eye to his current annoyance. "That reminds me, Naruto, that this training mission of yours is necessary. Given the nature of your pretty terrible performance," the young ninja-in-training winced at that, "I feel that this will definitely get you in line and set your priorities in order, and not just to help you iron out whatever's bothering you."

Naruto looked down on the ground and found a peculiar-looking rock to be rather interesting. "…I messed up big time, didn't I?"

"It's all right, Naruto," Asuma allayed. "The circumstances behind your first out-of-village assignment were…problematic, to say the least, but you and your team managed to come out of the ordeal with your body intact in a stroke of dumb luck…"

'_You just don't know _how _lucky, kid,'_ he mentally added as an afterthought. From what he gathered, things could have taken an extremely nasty turn for the worst, if conditions and logistics matched theirs again.

"Oh…" The greenhorn genin still appeared a bit crestfallen.

The cigarette connoisseur thought he heard a grunt off to the side, away from Naruto, but paid no heed to it. Maybe he should lay off the strange herbs his dad inhaled in his pipe-smoking binges. That or it could have been his imagination…or a whisper in the wind. "Then again, if, by chance, some other team around your age tried to do what you all did, then it would have been tantamount to a suicide mission…" He paused to amend and rescind on that statement. "Well, with the exception of a squad that graduated last year, I think."

"But…what about Sakura-chan and Sasuke? What will they do while I'm gone?" He wondered just what happened to a cell of two genin and a jōnin instructor.

"For now, worry about yourself," Asuma declared as he righted himself into a standing position. "Your teammates will still be in one piece by the time you get back, which is ultimately up to you," he pointed at him, blue eyes shining with bewilderment from the gesture, "by the way." He then stared at the sun's position in the sky. "I think you're all caught up enough, so let's head out."

"So…" Naruto started, walking by Asuma's right side, sandals lightly tapping against the coarse sand lining the way leading out of the hidden village, "how are we going to get there, and how long is the trip?"

"About two days, give or take, if we stick to the main roads," he truthfully answered while stretching his legs for the long walk. "This trip doesn't have a set deadline, so we'll take our time getting there." Quickly glancing around to see that everything was in order, he ambled over to the checkpoint desk to check out, as what most ninja did, in order for the secretaries to keep track over which shinobi were out on missions and which were available for standby.

"So, we're roughing it in the wilds for a while." Sapphire eyes dimmed a bit, feeling the urge to sigh in an exaggerated fashion as he flashed his registration card to the desk clerks.

"Hey, camping out for a bit is fun," the son of the Hokage rebutted, mimicking his temporary charge. "Plus, if you have any questions, then feel free to ask them. I'll try to answer them as best as I can."

"…Okay," Naruto conceded.

With a grunt, the chain-smoking jōnin hoisted his backpack onto his shoulders. "Well, then, let's go!" he boomed with a beaming grin.

XXXXXXXXXX

Haruno Sakura met at the bridge near one of Konoha's many riverbanks, the designated meeting spot for Team Seven. However, to her, something seemed…off. She could not put a finger on the feeling. Trying to shake it off, she impatiently tapped her foot on the wooden planks as she waited, listening to the quiet stream running underneath the bridge.

Several minutes later, the lone wolf of the squad strolled up, hands jammed into his high-collared blue shirt, facial features impassive and brooding, like always.

"Hey, Sasuke-kun!" the green-eyed bookworm cooed as she waved.

"Hn…" He easily dismissed her by walking past her to rest on the railing of the bridge.

Their jōnin instructor, surprisingly enough, quickly appeared in a flash of white smoke two minutes later on the high end of the bridge. Gravity-defying silver hair lightly swayed in the wafting, afternoon breeze as he gave his two remaining charges a lazy, casual wave. "Yo!" he greeted. "Glad to see you here."

"Sensei," green eyes looked curious, "where's Naruto?"

"…He's going away for a while," Kakashi bluntly answered, leaving it at that. The Hokage was succinct and brief with him to keep the location to where his sensei's legacy was going a well-kept secret, stamped with the seal that indicated confidentiality between the clients and patrons.

"Good," came the knee-jerk response from the kunoichi of the group, "because I don't have to deal with that idiot for a while. Isn't that right, Sasuke-kun?" Per her normal mode of operations, she batted her eyelashes to the brunet heartthrob, to no effect.

The Uchiha scion, on the other hand, felt that their teacher withheld a crucial point in all that. He then crossed his arms over his chest. "If that dead-last is getting specialized training, then I want to use the time to train for myself while he's gone." Just as he sprang from the railing to trudge elsewhere, Kakashi cleared his throat, all but forcing Sasuke to stop in his tracks.

"Well, I wouldn't say that, just yet, Sasuke," he said with a hint of mirth coating his words, irritating eye-smile lodged in place. "I wasn't finished."

"Wait…" Uneasiness crept along Sakura's innards, "there's more to this than you're letting on, Sensei."

"How very astute of you," the older ninja ambiguously chirped. "That also means you two are involved in this little situation, too."

"How so?" Sasuke wondered aloud, turning on his heels.

"Since we're short one genin of a full cell, that means we're on a short break from missions…as this team."

"You're not making any sense, Kakashi-sensei!" the wiz-kid of Team Seven frustratingly growled.

"Look underneath the underneath," he cryptically remarked. "I gave you the clues. No need spoon-feeding you."

"…" The only male remaining was not amused, as noted by the darkening scowl etched onto his face.

Sakura simply shrugged her shoulders, still coming up with nothing.

'…_Did they really learn nothing from their mission to the Wave Country?'_ the ashen-haired assassin mulled over in defeat. "It means that you are going to get split up, as noted in our recent edict by Hokage-sama." For emphasis, he procured the rolled-up parchment and shook it. "In the meantime, Sakura, you are to report to Yūhi Kurenai, jōnin-sensei of Team Eight, for team training assignments." The languid eye of the Copy Ninja then landed on the callous brunet. "That means Sasuke and I are going to take in my colleague's team, Squad Ten, under my wing, so do play nice."

"So…does that imply that Asuma-sensei is out of the village with Naruto, then?" the rosette-haired kunoichi reasoned, hazarding a guess to piece things together.

"Maybe," her mentor calmly conceded without giving much of an answer. "Some important business matters came up where they require his assistance, so my fellow peer decided to check them out, which just so happens to match up with Naruto's sudden disappearance."

"…That doesn't give us any reason as to why the idiot dead-last is accompanying him," Sasuke countered, still on guard. He would play this little game his so-called teacher threw at him.

"Well," Kakashi began, drumming up a half-truth, "I never alluded to that statement."

"You're lying, Sensei!" Sakura interrupted.

The Copy Ninja sighed away his troubles. "Regarding Naruto's absence, it's on a basis of 'need to know,' and quite frankly, I feel that you don't need to know. At least, for right now, that is." The Sandaime felt the need to go by the book on this ordeal. To keep some pressure off the boy's back, he could focus all that time to improve his shortcomings within the allotted time. Then again, it all fell to the blue-eyed, hyperactive shinobi to get stronger on the pace he set for himself, since Kakashi did not have a clue on what areas in which he needed work; rather, he felt somewhat inept on where to start. "Once we deem that you have learned enough from us, for the time being, we will then exchange one for the other. In a sense, you two will still train with me, so think of it like a little one-on-one time with your instructor, but with another team incorporated into it."

Jade eyes glazed over as she took in what her mentor relayed. "…Why didn't you just say that all you're doing is absorbing Team Ten into Team Seven, leaving me to be fed to the wolves?"

"Now, now, Sakura," he met her disbelief with assurance, "don't think of it like that. I'm sure you can learn a thing or two from Kurenai. Besides, the Hokage feels that our little kiddies should become accustomed to working with each other, thus promoting what we know best: the teamwork dynamic…" The son of the White Fang trailed off, vigilantly looking around for a possible sneak-attack from his self-proclaimed rival, an equally eccentric ninja just like him.

No sign of Konoha's Noble Green Beast, Maito Gai, at the mere utterance of the word 'dynamic?' Good. It must have been one of Hatake Kakashi's luckiest days. "Anyway, you are to meet your temporary sensei at the udon shop in the merchants' quarters in about an hour."

She took that cue as an informal dismissal. With a downtrodden look on her face, Sakura slumped off, already pining for her crush—_her_ Sasuke-kun. "…Okay," she reluctantly murmured before turning to the direction of her house.

The senior veteran cast his one-eyed gaze to his remaining charge. _'Maybe this might open his eyes and open him up to his other comrades…'_ he hopefully wished. It still was an uphill battle with the last of the Uchiha clan. _'And if I somehow screw up Asuma's teamwork that he set out for his team in the process, then I'm going to wear Gai's jumpsuit for a week.'_ How did his colleague manage to get that to fly by his dad, even though the conditions stood in a questionable position?

Another thought for later, perhaps…

"That means you and I are meeting up with Asuma's cell at the barbecue shop…" he glanced up at the sky to tell the time, "right about…now…" Just like that, the Copy Ninja vanished in a plume of smoke.

Sasuke, left alone on the bridge, owlishly blinked before shrugging. "…Whatever," he bit out into a huff while walking off to catch up.

XXXXXXXXXX

Around the evening hours leading into the night, Sarutobi Asuma scouted around a few choice clearings to camp out until the morning.

"Hm…This looks about right," he whispered in garbled tones; more to himself than his traveling companion.

Naruto, on the other hand, took the trip in stride for the time being. "We're stopping here for the night?" His cerulean eyes blurred around the copious cover provided by the trees within the glade.

His transient guardian nodded. "Yep. It's best to gather enough resources before the light of day fades into the night."

Off a pace away, the blond shinobi heard a lilting hum from his spiritual shadow. **"Hm…poetic…just like how he used to woo me when he was a kid."** That caused the boy, who was about to search for necessities, to stumble over what his mom said as he caught himself before the ground did it for him.

"Naruto, go ahead and pitch the tents," the bearded jōnin commanded, seemingly oblivious to his charge's plight. I think Nature's calling me."

For the second time in two days, the son of the Red-Hot Bloody Habanero stood at a loss for words. "Um…yeah. Sure."

Soon after, Asuma left the clearing, departing from the boy's company for a brief moment.

In the meantime, the exuberant kid summoned about ten Kage Bunshin to gather firewood and stones, among other purposes.

"Be sure to dig a hole deep enough so I can get started on this stone fire pit," the authentic Uzumaki directed, pointing to a soft spot in the ground and quickly recalling some of the survival exercises during his time in the Academy.

He was stirred from his directives with a low whistle.

"**Ten shadow clones and not even winded?"** Kushina rhetorically asked, dark-green eyes alight with wonder. **"That's pretty good!"**

"…You," he rounded on a duplicate that quizzically stared at him, "stay alert and keep watch." With a slight bob of its head, the blue-eyed replica jumped on a low-hanging branch, propelling itself even higher into the canopy. Then, a flat look came to his face when he set his sights on his mother. "Why do you keep bothering me when I least expect it?"

She shrugged her shoulders, goofy grin that, upon closer look, seemed hauntingly familiar to her son. **"Keeping you on your toes!"** she boomed.

"…So," he began, feeling a bit uncomfortable by bringing up the topic, "Asuma-sensei tried to hit on you?" In fact, he felt a tad grossed out from even broaching the subject.

The redhead snorted. **"Oh, I was much older than him, anyway,"** she noted with a playful tone, waving it off all the same. However, beneath the surface, she felt the subtle cold shoulder from her son. It was to be expected, since he had trust issues, given the nature of how he had been neglected. _'I'll wait for him to come around, but if he keeps closing me off, then I'll say something…'_

Her thoughts halted when she and her son heard a disturbance in the thick underbrush, indicating that the chain-smoking ninja had finished his business.

"…I think Asuma-sensei's on his way back," Naruto observed.

"**No worries!"** she chimed in, keeping that forlorn feeling out of her tone of voice. **"There's still something I need to look into. I'll be right back, my son…"**

To the kid's astonishment, the energy given off by his dead mother quickly petered out, leaving him all to his lonesome until his part-time mentor returned moments later, stretching out his arms in an exaggerated fashion high above his head.

"Ah…" the son of the current Hokage airily yawned in relief, "much better, now…" Brown eyes lit with intrigue as he stared around the clearing. "Oh, and I see you got most of everything put together! Nice job, Naruto!"

"Thanks," he sheepishly uttered, rubbing the back of his head with his right hand as a goofy grin displayed upon his features. He scanned the area, not really paying much attention to the setup his clones had done before banishing themselves. Their tents were pitched roughly two-and-a-half meters equidistant to the stone fire pit, which, together, formed a small triangle if one were to take a snapshot of the campsite from an aerial view.

Along the lines of that pit that could contain a fire, Naruto had nothing to spark it. "Um…Asuma-sensei, can you spare a light? I can't find any of my matches."

"Hm…" the robust man quietly hummed. "I think it's about time you kids should start learning utility jutsu to make packing not only light, but it also aids in convenience."

"Utility jutsu?" The confused pre-teen threw a puzzled look in Asuma's direction. "What are they?"

"Utility techniques can be used in the event that you can't pack for a highly sensitive mission," he helpfully explained. "In order to function better in the wilderness, you can learn these skills to help you thrive better, alongside your survival lessons."

"Oh…" Still, ever the clueless ninja, he wished that his proxy sensei would just get to the point. "So, mind if you show me some examples?"

With a quick nod, Asuma casually approached the bundle of twigs pitched like their tents in the center of the stone pit, deftly channeling his life force through his weaving hand seals, landing on the Seal of the Tiger—hands clenched together with thumbs, index and middle fingers touching while stretched out. "Just watch and learn, Naruto."

"…Just wondering," the boy hazarded, briefly interrupting the demonstration as he distracted his temporary teacher, "and sorry for breaking your focus, but how come we can't try to use two sticks and rub 'em together?" Blue eyes glimmered with confusion as his head turned to the side. "Wouldn't that be the easier way? Seems kind of lazy if we waste chakra like that, you know?"

"Well…there's that, too," he reasoned, "but I just want to show you this as a demonstration."

"…Oh, okay." True to form, Naruto's mouth formed a loose O-ring. His eyes then grew to the size of saucers when a steady stream of fire poured from the chain-smoker's maw. "Ooh! Cool! I wanna know that! Teach me! Teach me!"

Asuma always appreciated the newfound exuberance in his part-time ward en route to the Fire Temple.

XXXXXXXXXX

Haku, the lone boy hopping around the treetops, struggled to breathe as he darted with a celerity he had no idea he possessed, wheezing and panting along the way with the mammoth broadsword tightly clung in his grip.

He understood what his master wanted of him before casting him aside: Zabuza did not want the Hidden Mist to collect his tools in order to utilize them for ill will. With regard to the old regime, there was no love lost between his late mentor and the governing faction that he deserted…

Well, from what Haku gleaned from Zabuza's mutterings from time to time, anyway…

Either way, he stayed in that compromised area for far too long, and he had to keep moving, no matter what would happen. He pumped as much energy as possible into his legs before he reached a seemingly safe location away from their clash with Kiri's forces.

Much to the ice-conjuring ninja's surprise, and when he thought it was secure to be some four kilometers away, an elderly man with a strange eye-patch slowly walked out from behind one of the many trees dotting the forested area. He walked like a shinobi with purpose and clear intentions…and gazed in his general direction, which caused the last heir of the Yuki clan to duck behind a wide-enough tree.

"I know you're around here!" he heard the man belt out with a gravelly, stern tone. "Come from behind that tree, so I can see you!"

The young brunet stood flummoxed and horrified. _'How did he—?'_

Before his thought processes fully registered, the strange ninja—who had the Hidden Mist's insignia chiseled cleanly across his hitai-ate—closed the distance with an unnatural speed and stood face-to-face with him, cutting off any potential avenues of escape.

"What's your name, son?" the blue-haired man inquired with a hint of wariness.

Panicking, and ignoring the question, Haku's eyes zipped around to find a way out of this predicament, since he had no idea if this shinobi had malicious intent or not. Acting on the instinct equivalent to a cornered animal, the brown-eyed Hyōton wielder ran into the man, not considering how dangerous it was to come that close to an enemy and not get injured, pushed him aside, and kept going, doing his best to shake him, with the horse-cleaving sword rattling in place on his back at the current moment.

'_I have to get away!'_

No matter where he turned or fled from the hunter-ninja, somehow, the man had a strange power that knew where he placed himself. Had Haku thought rationally, the older shinobi would have done away with him already if he was tasked to eliminate him.

Despite his last-ditch efforts to shake him, and clearly outpaced, outmatched, and outlasted, the fourteen-year-old apprentice of the late Momochi Zabuza held his head in shame and leaned against the cool bark in the misty grove as the other shinobi ambled over at a sedate pace, not appearing the slightest bit winded.

Intrigued, the man asked again, "What's your name, boy?"

"…" Once more, the last of the Yuki clan kept his silence, not revealing a shred of information.

"…I'm Ao," the man muttered, obviously gauging him with a critical analysis as he hummed in the process. "Hm…Seems to me that you're running away from something." A ghost of a nod pointed to what he carried. "Kind of hard to do with that sword on your back…"

'_Pupils contracted, heavy sweating…an adrenaline rush brought upon by…what, I wonder?'_ Ao surmised as he took in the young boy's shaken resolve and determination. He looked upset, too. _'Could he be a corpse-robber?'_ Ao mentally shook his head, quickly dismissing that thought. _'No, that can't be right. I see only a lost soul that needs guidance, and I don't need this special eye to tell me that…'_

"I'm here to help…" Taking a cautious step forward, Ao swiftly retracted his foot when a crystalline mirror erupted out of nowhere between the boy and him. Had he reacted slower, his toes could have been sliced off due to the sharp edges.

"Stay away!" The raw emotion was felt and heard behind the mirror of ice as the kid bolted off, yet again, deeper into the woods.

'_Huh…he's one of the Yuki clan,'_ the elder shinobi concluded, _'and rumors did say Zabuza had an accomplice. Could _this _be him?'_ Not even considering the idea of losing him, especially with whose forces roamed around the contested region; Ao launched himself into some awaiting tree branches to hasten his search time. _'At least I found him before _his _set of cronies intercepted and killed him, now that Zabuza bit it…'_

He let loose a very shaky sigh. _'A shame, too. We could've used him to end this civil war…'_

He thumbed around his chest region to press a button to activate his transmitter radio system. "All units, new objective," he enunciated. "Dark-haired male with brown eyes running around with the sword that Zabuza wielded. Be advised that he's a bloodline carrier. Do not kill. I repeat, do _not_ kill!"

XXXXXXXXXX

Walking down a quiet path alongside his travel guide, Naruto strained his face in concentration as he ran through the hand seal sequence to the technique Asuma had tried to teach him. For the past hour or so en route to their destination, progress proved minimal, at best, but that never deterred the attention-starved ninja.

"This isn't working, Asuma-sensei!" the blond growled out as he slid his fingers from the Seal of the Rat into the Seal of the Tiger, trying his best to grasp the molding of the chakra into an elemental form. So far, nothing happened. "How long will it be until I get this down?"

"It takes time, Naruto," the chain-smoking jōnin allayed. "It doesn't happen overnight."

"It did when I learned how to make Shadow Clones," he countered with a small murmur.

By the younger ninja's surprise that his voice was heard, his temporary mentor hand then asked him, "How long?" Now, Asuma's curiosity slowly started to get the better of him.

Blue eyes looked up at dark ones. "…About a couple of hours?" The orange-clad genin shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. I didn't have a clock or a watch around me."

"Hm…" That led the cigarette connoisseur to rub his beard in contemplation. From what limited intelligence he had pertaining to Uzumaki Naruto's graduation to genin (or rather, what was leaked out to the public with formerly classified documents that were redacted before release to protect still-confidential material), he guessed that the blond beside him had an extremely short learning curve, especially when under emotional duress and on an adrenaline high.

'_He has the true indicators of a quick-witted genius when in a combat-type setting,'_ he inwardly mused. _'And to think that I was one of the ones that wrote him off as a bumbling idiot who couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag…'_

Then again, from reports that were on file in the Ninja Academy, Naruto could have learned to apply himself a little bit more, when taking into account his attendance records and periods of truancy. A bit rough around the edges, sure, but with the proper guidance, and with the power of the Kyūbi sealed in his gut, the boy would have broken any limitation known to man. _'Perhaps, the monks can supply us with neutral feedback when he starts their rigorous training procedures…'_

He ventured too far into his inner thoughts, until Naruto shook him from his trance. "Are you all right, Asuma-sensei?"

"…Just thinking," was all he managed to say as the large, iron gates jumped into his view several meters in the distance. "Ah, here we are!"

Cobalt eyes fixedly stared straight ahead and noticed the decorative artwork all around the big walls surrounding the sprawling monastery. "Whoa! Is that the Fire Temple?"

He missed Asuma's nod in the affirmative. "Indeed so. I used to train here about a decade ago…"

Through the jōnin's in-depth discourse about the Fire Temple, Naruto felt a tug on his consciousness on top of a soothing sensation emanating from the two, golden statues flanking the brass-colored double doors under the arch with the name of the monastery in archaic calligraphy. To him, Nature seemed to overwhelm the fibers of his being. _'This is getting super weird…'_

He mentally grimaced when that old drunk's quirk about anything 'super' fluttered through his brain. _'For my sanity…'_

A rhythmic, low, and humming chant caught his attention…and he assumed that the sound—and the strange auras—poured off in waves from the figures flanking either side of the doors. The robed statue on the left looked like a winged man with an exaggeratingly huge nose, and the sculpture on the right that mirrored the posture of the one on the left had what appeared to be a mask of an angry god on its face. _'Is that energy coming from both of those statues?'_ he asked himself. _'This day just keeps getting weirder and weirder…'_

Suddenly, the exuded power immediately ceased due to something his part-time instructor did without his awareness and the sturdy, fortified doors cracked open, allowing them safe entry into the pristine wonders of the immaculate monastery.

Naruto let loose a relieved sigh when they were greeted by three old men that walked with purpose toward their soon-to-be houseguests. "I guess it's time for my training!" he uttered in open excitement.

The smile on his face could have lit one thousand nights, if it ever happened.

* * *

**A/N:** Greetings, once again. I apologize on my behalf for falling short of consistency compared to the last year of updating. Some things in RL got in the way (and I won't elaborate on them), so, on that note, I'm sorry for not keeping up with frequent installments. Believe me in when I relay to you that I will see to it that my works will be completed.

I apologize (after the fact) that there really wasn't any progression for this chapter, either, but do expect things to pick up in the next installment, seeing that this update posed merely as a bridge connector into what lies ahead.

**However, on that note, please know this, ladies and gentlemen: Due to personal matters beyond my control, and until TFD is slapped with a "**_**Complete**_**" tag on it, both this story and **_**Limit Breaker**_** (once I upload its Chapter Four) will be on temporary hiatus. I feel now that I have stretched myself a little too thin with bouncing around among three incomplete works. Please, don't be mad or flip a table. I have weighed this on my mind ever since real life came knocking on my doorstep. [**_**This bolded print will be eliminated once I pick back up on both side-projects**_**.]**

At any rate, some notes of acknowledgement are in order to the usual suspects that are my go-to pre-readers for this installment: **EliadS **and **Arashi the Solar Phoenix**.

Well, it's Q&A time again!

_Q: Will Sora, a Shippūden-exclusive character, make his appearance in this fic?_

A: To be perfectly honest with my audience, I'm still on the fence regarding his inclusion. If my Muse dictates as such, then so shall he be written in. If not, then, I guess it wasn't meant to be.

_Q: Why was it that I knocked off Zabuza and didn't allow him to live?_

A: To be frank and brutally honest, for this continuum, just like with TFD (since these stories run parallel to one another), I don't really need him. On the other hand, I will try my best to keep him alive in my _Limit Breaker_ series, since I do require his…hand in certain matters. Anyhow, the Demon's death is meant as a jump-start for Haku's character growth and development. Don't look any deeper than necessary for my motives.

_Next time, __**Chapter Four**__: Ignition, where our little rookies undergo trials to have them rethink their worldviews – from at home and abroad._

Until next time, enjoy your day (or night, depending on your time zone), ladies and gentlemen, and show me some love with a review, while you're down this far on the page. =)

Later!

No Kanji Guide this time around…sadly…


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